Half of Kabul residents lack access to potable water

KABUL (Pajhwok): With the population reaching about 4.5 million people in capital Kabul, half of them still have no access to potable water.

A report by Pajhwok Afghan News about access to clean water was based on statistics obtained from Water Supply and Canalization department and the estimated Kabul population was provided by the Central Statistic Office (CSO).

The report shows there is huge difference between the ratio of increasing population in Kabul and their access to clean water in the past 14 years.

Dad Mohammad Baheer, head of Water Supply and Canalization department, told Pajhwok Afghan News currently 150,000 city’s planned families and 105,000 city’s unplanned families had access to potable.

Based on the department’s estimates, around two and half million Kabul families had access to potable water provided by the department. He said that 1,550,000 other families were using wells’ water.

The CSO head Azizullah Faqiri said their estimates show that around 4.5 million people currently live in Kabul.

He said three million people from 2001 till now have added to Kabul population. Based on the estimate, around 44 percent of Kabul people have no access to potable water.

Shafiqa, a resident of 7^th police district of Kabul city, said that families in their area still faced with lack of access to clean water.

Abdullah, a resident of Nawabad district of second police district, said: “We are using unhygienic water due to absence of clean water in our area.”

Environment officials had previously warned about excessive contamination of underground water.

The side-by-side locations of septic wells with water wells and the flow of city streams to underground were issues that the health officials had warned about.

Water Supply and Canalization director said that the level of underground water had dipped down and excessive use of that would face people with the shortage of water, and hazardous for health.

mds/rm