Dear Editor,
Bera, a village of border Tehsil Ranbir Singh Pura
(R S Pura) sometimes faces serious life threats in the shape of continuous ceasefire violations by Pakistani Rangers. But, for the last one year the people of this village are facing another serious problem and that is of polluted drinking water. As the main occupation of the people of this village for so many decades is agriculture and it is their only source of livelihood, in order to raise bumper crops, the farmers of this village used large amount of urea and other fertilizers in their fields which now reached near about one hundred feet deep under soil and polluted the drinking water of all hand pumps installed in the village. Almost all hand pumps of this village had their pipes just 100 feet deep and the water of these hand pumps has a very large concentration of urea in it. These hand pumps are the only source of drinking water for the two thousand people of this village as there is no pipeline or supply of water from the Public Health Engineering (PHE) Department. People of the village tried hard to purify the water by different methods particularly by boiling it at 100 degree celcius but all in vain. There is no method to purify the water which contains high concentration of urea in it or to extract urea from water. Because of the use of the polluted water, people of this village are suffering from a number of diseases like excess of uric acid, diabetes, arthritis, hypertension etc. According to the local people, a couple of months ago, a team of doctors visited the village and declared this water unfit and unhygienic for drinking purpose as they found very high concentration of urea in it. But PHE Department and State Government is paying no heed towards these people and their grievance particularly of drinking water. Now the people of this village used to go a few miles away from their houses where there is a water hand pump near Baba Shadi Shaheed Temple and the water of this pump is still good to use as the pipe of this water hand pump is more than 150 feet deep. But people of this village are afraid that if this water pump also got polluted then what they will do as it is the only source of drinking water for them. In this connection when Chief Engineer PHE Department Jammu Sushil Aima was contacted, he said that the people of the Bera village had installed water hand pumps in their houses by themselves and PHE Department had not installed any water hand pump in the Bera village. When Sushil Aima was asked that when PHE Department will organize a clean and hygienic water supply to the Bera village, he replied that till now the PHE Department have no scheme to supply water to the village but will think on it and supply water to the village. Responsible citizens of Bera village Satinder Singh, Seeta Ram, Gian Singh, Narotam Singh on behalf of all villagers request the State Government to take necessary and immediate action in this regard otherwise they along with their families will go on fast unto death and only State Government will be responsible for any sort of loss of property and lives.
Manzoor A. Naik
Jammu
