Check water contamination: J&K Governor

Jammu and Kashmir Governor N.N. Vohra has pitched for remedial measures to provide safe drinking water, after hundreds of villagers in rural areas of the state were reported to be suffering from different water borne diseases, including Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C, allegedly due to the supply of contaminated water by Public Health Engineering Department (PHE).  Vohra has asked for fixing responsibility for the failure of schemes worth hundreds of crores of rupees for providing safe drinking water after a recent NITI Aayog report said that 60% of the state’s population is being supplied untreated drinking water. Many villages in South Kashmir, especially in Kokernag and Qazigund areas, have witnessed the outbreak of waterborne diseases because of contaminated water. The Kashmir Centre of Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSVP) in its activity report 2015 had claimed that 2.5% of the population in South Kashmir is suffering from Hepatitis C.  Chief Engineer PHE, Kashmir Ghulam Mohammad Bhat, told the media that many filtration plants would be made functional in the coming months under the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP). Bhat said that another PHE division would be created for Srinagar to address the water scarcity issue and to provide safe drinking water to the growing population.