“It was the last thing I wanted to hear. Every day, my wife asked me to bring water from the spring after doing heavy labour during the day,” Sar Bali Khan told The Express Tribune.
“You can’t imagine how difficult it was to do manual labour all day and then having have to carry water from one and a half kilometres away,” added the day labourer, who is a resident of Qambar Village.
When people hear the name of Qambar Village, a wave of fear surges through them as they recall the time when it was a militant stronghold. Maulana Shah Dawran Khan, one of the top Tehrik-e-Taliban commanders in Swat,
lived in it.
Recently though, it is water supply problems that have plagued the village.
Though the village is located just two kilometres away from Mingora, the financial hub of Swat, it is short of every basic facility of life. There is a place one and half kilometre from the village, where locals walk up to fetch water from natural springs, for years the only source of water serving the needs of more than a hundred households and 700 people.
“To bring water on our heads from the distant springs was a tiresome job, done mostly by our women and children after doing household activities all day. But now it is different, and we are grateful to the Open Society Foundation (OSF) and Sarhad Rural Support Programme (SRSP) for carrying out the drinking water supply scheme,” said Shuja Mohammad, president of the Al-Khidmat Welfare Organisation.
Aqil Hayat, secretary at Al-Khidmat Foundation, told the Express Tribune, “This village consists of poor communities and that is why, despite repeated requests nobody tried to solve this genuine problem. Thankfully, OSF and SRSP resolved the long standing issue.”
OSF and SRSP have carried out 10 such schemes throughout Swat Valley, in an attempt to give poor communities easy access to drinking water.
“Water in the springs is uncovered and unhygienic because animals use it as well. The water causes different skin and stomach diseases,” said Akbar Khan, a medical technician in the village, “But now we have a proper water tank which is covered and hygienic.”
Published in The Express Tribune, April 03rd, 2011
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