On December 19, in Bandipora, Abdul Qayoom Chopan, an orchardist aged 70 and living in poverty in the town of Bonni Ban in Athwatoo in north Kashmir, has been asking the government for money.
This is because of the harm that the Public Health Engineering (PHE) or Jal Shakti department is said to have caused.
Chopan said that the wrong way the department laid the pipes “wreaked havoc” on his garden, causing a five-foot retaining wall to fall down and several trees to be uprooted.
Even after he told the department about the leak, he said no one “bothered to address the leakage.”
“PHE contractors started laying water pipes a while ago to bring water to the nearby home,” Chopan said.
He told them he was worried because some of the work was being done underground near his garden.
“I told the contractors to properly lay the pipes underground, but to my disappointment, they didn’t do it right, and on the 8th of this month, the pipes started to leak.”
Chopan said he tried to get help from the leaders in and around his village who were in charge, but no one would listen.
Then he went to the police station, where some workers helped him and fixed the leak. “But by that time, the damage was done,” he concluded.
People in the town said they were happy about the new homes and the ability to get clean water to faraway places, but “not at the cost of anyone’s livelihood.”
They said that the department wasn’t doing a good job and that the water pipes that go through the fields often leak.
Now, Chopan is asking the department to pay him back and for the officials to look into what happened and tell the vendors how to do their job right.
