Tarn Taran Diary: Long wait for drinking water supply in Naushehra Pannuan village

The residents of Naushehra Pannuan village which has a population of about 8,000 have been waiting for drinking water supply for more than six years. The residents have lost all hopes as no official or political representative is ready to listen to their genuine complaints. This is the village which was known as the mini-capital of undivided Punjab during the rule of Partap Singh Kairon, the then Chief Minister. The village was given every possible facility with even the poor sections being allotted residential areas. Partap Singh Kairon had his sub-office in Naushehra Pannuan and used to come to his native village from Chandigarh. As groundwater was contaminated, drinking water supply was provided to the residents in 1995 following an appeal. The Water Supply and Sanitation Department deputed a pump operator in the village to provide regular supply to the villagers at the site of water tank installed on the Naushehra Pannuan-Lauhuka link road. The water supply has been stopped since 2018 when the state government handed over the responsibility for supplying drinking water to the villagers. As groundwater has become contaminated, most families are not in a capacity to make arrangements for water supply on their own as only deep borewell can supply them with drinking water. The village panchayat was taking no interest in restarting the water supply and the department wound up the old scheme because of which the residents lost all hopes of getting water supply from the earlier system. It was not only Naushehra Pannuan, many other villages in the district including Chabal which has six gram panchayats were not getting water supply. They have not been getting drinking water for years. The residents of Naushehra Pannuan village used to fetch drinking water from nearby Chaudhriwala village or from Gurdwara Dhanna Bhagat. Gurpreet Singh Ganduiwind, Dalwinder Singh Naushehra Pannuan, Daljit Singh Dialpura and some other representatives of the people have demanded the restoration of drinking water supply to every village on community basis.

Automotive and driving skill centre

Tarn Taran has one of the five Automotive and Driving Skill Centres in the state providing accessible driving skills training to those in need. The other four are located in Bathinda, Roopnagar, Hoshiarpur and Gurdaspur. The Tarn Taran centre is being run by the Red Cross Society. A two-day training programme on road safety too is provided by the centre besides a refresher course for new licences or to renew their driving licences for which the people had to go to Mahuana in Muktsar Sahib district which was causing significant difficulties. Deputy Commissioner Sandeep Kumar said the people can now receive their training from Tarn Taran, eliminating the need to travel to far off distances. Laljit Singh Bhullar, Transport Minister, distributed certificate of training in driving during his visits.

Dream to engineer new designs

Gobind (22), a resident of Gohalwar village in Tarn Taran district, son of a teacher-couple, has joined as software engineer in a company recently. He topped in Plus Two from SD Sewa Devi College, Tarn Taran and cleared JEE Advance and got admission in Thapar Engineering College, Patiala in computer engineering. Gobind nurtured his interest in engineering since childhood making different objects. (contributed by Gurbaxpuri)

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