Mithi residents protest against water shortage

Allege corruption by government dept, private firms caused the crisis

After marching on different roads of Mithi town of Tharparkar on Wednesday, a large number of workers of Qaumi Awami Tehreek staged a protest demonstration outside the office of Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) against the worsening water crisis in the town.

Speaking to the media, the leaders of the protesting QAT workers held the PHED high-ups responsible for the unavailability of water in Mithi in particular and in the whole district in general. They alleged that high-ups of Sindh had spent billions on different water schemes in Tharparkar but the residents of the desert region have been forced to drink contaminated water from deep wells.

They alleged that almost all reverse osmosis (RO) plants which were installed at the huge cost of over Rs15 billion have long ago ceased to function due to massive corruption both by the officials of the private firms and PHED. The protesters deplored the fact that towns including Mithi, Islamkot, Diplo which were provided with canal water through pipelines from Naukot were not being provided with water, leaving them at the mercy of the tanker mafia.

The protest leaders said that due to the complete failure of waterworks, the residents of Mithi were forced to purchase water cans at exorbitant rates while those who could not afford to buy them were forced to use the highly toxic water from wells that were miles away. They demanded that the chief justice of Sindh High Court take notice of their plight since the PPP rulers had not kept their promises to provide them water through the waterworks.

The people of Nagarparkar town, who were promised provision of water through pipelines by the top leadership during the elections campaign are yet to get water in their town mainly due to massive corruption by the contractors in carrying out the mega project. The people of Nagarparkar, like other parts of Thar, are also forced to get drinking water from shallow ponds and deep wells.

Talking to Minute Mirror, the residents of the hill town complained that despite frequent protests, the high-ups of Sindh government do not seem interested in taking the contractors to task for the alleged corruption in the schemes which were meant to provide them with canal water from Naukot through a pipeline. They said the water crisis had deepened in Islamkot, Diplo and other towns due to indifferent and callous attitude of the relevant functionaries.

Hanif Samoon is a senior journalist based at Thar/Badin and contributes reports from different districts of Sindh to Minute Mirror. He has won a number of awards, including the Agahi Award twice for his stories on health and child rights. He tweets @HanifSamoon1 and can be reached through email at [email protected]