75pc houses in Jalalabad lack access to safely managed water

JALALABAD (Pajhwok): Urban Water Supply Department officials say 75 percent houses in Jalalabad city, the capital of eastern Nangarhar province, lack access to safely managed potable water and they use water from private wells.

They say arbitrary digging of deep wells and water pumps have lowered the underground water level in the city, but they are trying to solve the problem by establishing organized water supply systems.

On the other hand, residents of Jalalabad city say areas where water supply networks exist cannot meet people’s need.

Eng. Nadullah Niazi, director of Nangarhar Water Supply Department, told Pajhwok Afghan News about 10,000 families have access to water supply facilities in nine districts of the provincial capital and 75 percent of families were deprived of such facilities.

He said: “We don’t provide water to the whole city, we provide services to the people of five districts and we don’t have services in the newly created districts.”

He added although the Statistics Department had no exact figures about the number of households, they had the plan to set up water supply networks for 20,000 families in the four remaining districts in cooperation with NGOs.

He said construction work on water supply networks was rapidly underway and the facilities would cost 42 million afghanis and the water supply level would be expanded and improved.

He said about 50km of old water supply networks had been destroyed in five districts of the provincial capital.

He said the water supply network of Jalalabad city consisted 14 deep wells and two boreholes.

He also said this network had three reservoirs with 3,950 cubic meters of water and supplied water for 192 kilometers.

Niazi said in past his department’s revenue was low, but in the last two years, they were able to collect 43 million afghanis from the people and submitted it to the government treasury.

Residents of Jalalabad city admit water supply services have improved compared to the past, but they say the water reaching them is insufficient.

Fawad, a resident of the fourth district, told Pajhwok: “The problem is water in the government tap comes for one hour a day, and it doesn't even meet ten percent need of our house.”

Also, owner of a hotel in Mukhabarato square of Jalalabad city's, said  due to the lack of public water supply system, they were forced to dig a well and build their own water supply system.

Residents of newly created districts (sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth) of Jalalabad city are demanding water supply services in their areas.

Wahidullah, a resident of Nazarabad area of 7th district, told Pajhwok this district was newly created and lacked urban water network and the people were facing many problems.

Jalalabad city has nine districts including four created in the last few years but they are deprived of many urban services.

kk/ma