PESHAWAR, July 1: A majority of the population throughout the 3,372 square kilometre area of Karak district has been facing acute shortage of drinking water, as the underground water is not only declining, but also gradually turning brackish, and the surface water sources have dried up owing to the prolonged drought.
The people of all age groups, particularly minor boys, girls and women, can be seen bringing water in pitchers on their heads or in water-skins on donkeys for their domestic use from far-off areas. This situation in the desert-like western parts of the district is frustrating, where the people have to search for fresh water far and wide.
Natural water sources in the Takht-i-Nasrati Tehsil, as elsewhere in the district, are scarce and the residents have to bring water from distant localities or buy water tankers to meet their daily requirements. “This situation prevails since we were young,” said a group of women, some having pitchers on their heads and some leading the donkeys with water-skins on their backs.
Most of these women, who were between 40 and 60 years of age, said that they had not witnessed such a worst kind of water scarcity in their life.
“We are used to bringing water on heads since we were minor girls,” they said, observing that they were witness to the hollow promises made with the people by the politicians and government functionaries at the time of elections. “Here, nobody is sincere in solving this problem. They just fool the people with false promises.”
The inhabitants of eastern parts of Karak Tehsil, where fresh ground water is found only in some pockets, increasingly depend on government water supply schemes, as the fresh water sources, like open wells, tubewells and natural springs, have either dried up or rendered undrinkable due to the drift of underground brackish water towards the locality where most of the tubewells exist.
In recent days, all the three Tehsils of the district, comprising 21 union councils, have been hit hard by the worst kind of water scarcity. The situation in the Banda Daud Shah Tehsil is also quite bleak as the scarce ground water has turned brackish due to the presence of numerous salt quarries in the mountains of Jatta Ismail Khel and Terri area.
The district is traversed by three main natural water courses, which originate from the famous salt ranges in all the three Tehsils of the district. One of the main reasons of the underground brackishness of water is the salt quarries situated in the east, north and south of the district.
Given the fact that Karak is a main water scarcity zone, like some other parts of the southern districts of the NWFP, the water shortage is going to assume an alarming proportions in the years to come.
“The situation will be so difficult in 10 to 15 years from now that the inhabitants would be forced to migrate in search of water if the present rate of rainfall and the haphazard borings continued,” said Works and Services department, Karak, executive engineer Rehmat Ali, while stressing the need for finding a permanent solution to this basic problem.