Tuesday, August 22, in Shopian, residents of the Gagran community in the Shopian district of south Kashmir staged a protest march in response to the abrupt lack of water supply in the region.
The Shopian-Kulgam road was stopped by a large number of local inhabitants, including women, as a form of protest over the Jal Shakti Department’s inability to provide an uninterrupted supply of drinking water to the region.
One of the protesters, a lady, said that the region had been suffering from a serious lack of water for the last ten days.
She said that they had no choice but to go outside since the authorities were unable to get the water supply back up.
Protesters chanted anti-Jal Shakti Department chants throughout the demonstration.
The demonstrators said that they had attempted to bring the matter to the attention of the department on many occasions but had been unsuccessful.
They said that nobody was prepared to listen to them at the moment.
The irritated citizens said, “Over the course of the past seven years, the officials have been giving us the runaround.”
Greater Kashmir was informed by Executive Engineer of the Jal Shakti Department, Abdul Rashid, that the water supply to the region has been successfully restored.
He said that the region has not had access to running water since Monday evening.
The official said that some orchardists had shut off the primary supply of water to irrigate their crops, which resulted in a lack of water in the area.
