Rs 430m project promises potable water to Tharis

[LahoreEstate]

By Amar Guriro

KARACHI: Elderly Hamtho Bheel never thought that he would ever found river water in his small village that is located just near the outskirts of the district headquarter of Umerkot.

In 2008, the district government started building a huge pond with the help of federal government at a heavy cost of Rs 430 million that was planned to be filled with canal water from Umerkot.

Though, it was supposed to be completed by June 2009, work on it is still in progress. Despite that, the construction of a huge pond has brought hopes for the villagers of several small desert villages and small colonies of Umerkot. Umerkot, the gateway to the Thar desert, is a bordering town that is located just between the barrage area and sand dunes of Thar.

It is suffering from acute water shortage since several years. Mostly, people of this area use underground well water or install hand pumps to get potable water, but the increasing population and continuous drought has decreased the underground water levels and thus several wells have dried up.

Beside wells and hand pumps, the people of Thar area also depend on small tanks or tankos as they call it, to collect rainwater. The concept basically originated in Rajasthan, India, and became popular among the people of the Thar area of Sindh.

Whether it is a tanko or a huge natural ponds locally known as taraai, the problem remains the same, the seepage and evaporation, which rapidly finishes the water. Besides that, water is contaminated with fluoride and becomes unfit for drinking.

Hamtho, resident of a small desert village Bharmilyo Bheel, just few kilometres out of Umerkot town, met this scribe at a well, which is located near a road. He was carrying an earthen urn and a plastic water cooler to get water for his family. He said that almost all the wells in the area are brackish and contaminated with pollutants, so the villagers have to walk miles to fetch potable water but even then their attempts sometimes fail. He expects that the new project would provide water at their doorsteps. An official of the Umerkot District Government said the project is almost ready and would be functional within next one month. He also said that besides storage of the water, the project would also filter water

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