Daily Times

In villages surrounding Pasni town, people leave their homes at the start of the day everyday in search of water. They travel for miles looking for water and when at last they find some source, it is usually water mixed with mud and other impurities. Desperate residents return home with pails of water which is otherwise unfit for human consumption.

People in these villages surrounding Pasni town have been hit so hard by water shortages that many have started abandoning their homes and migrating to other areas, including Pasni town, which is about 50km from Gwadar city

Alam Khan’s family is among those who have moved to Sur Bandar area. Khan’s family abandoned their home in Ganon village after water became scarce in the nearby area.

“We left our home and migrated in distress and under compulsion. It was very painful,” said Alam Khan, “We have heard that the government is transforming Gwadar into another Dubai.”

Alam said residents of the region water reliable water supply more than anything else.

It is worth noting that Gwadar port is a part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects.

Like Khan, Pir Imdad’s family also gave up on life in their native village and moved to Pasni town.

He said all of his animals had died due to a water shortage.

The region faces severe drought due to lack of rains since the last four years. The situation is worse in villages where streams, ponds and wells have gone dry.

Villagers like Pir Imdad and Khan are migrating to the town with hopes of starting their lives afresh. But their problems continue unabated, as they haven’t been able to find reliable water supply over
there either.

Families who have already moved far from their homes but to no avail remain in distress.

The water level in Shadi Kor Dam and Swed Dam has already reached a
dead level.

Peer Jaan, the in-charge of the Pasni National Rural Support Programme, said his organisation had built about 32 ponds across the region but even those have dried up due to persistent drought.

On the other hand, the government had announced that it would provide free water to the region by tankers. But Reham Dil, a resident of Pasni town, refutes the claim that water was being supplied free of charge. “We pay Rs 1,000 per chamber to tanker owners and follow up with them but they deliver it after a long wait.”

Another resident of Pasni, Qambar Ali, also said that the tanker mafia was doing business and benefiting from shortage of water in the area.

The article originally appeared in Pak Voices. The writer is a citizen journalist from Pasni, Gwadar

Published in Daily Times, July 27^th 2017.