BAGH, AZAD KASHMIR, Pakistan (Asia Water Wire) – An extended drought has brought reconstruction of homes and infrastructures in the earthquake-affected areas of Azad Kashmir to a stand-still.

   The massive earthquake in October 2005 that killed over 73,000 people not only damaged homes and other infrastructures but also dislodged or buried many fresh-water springs or caused them to change course and dry up. 

WASHINGTON (IPS) - The mammoth Three Gorges dam in China is attracting renewed calls for an independent financial and environmental audit, as concerns mount over the hefty costs of the world's largest dam and its social and environmental impacts.

   The Toronto-based environmental group Probe International (PI), which put up stiff opposition to Canadian financial backing for the multi-billion-dollar project, said that claims by the dam authorities that the Three Gorges project will cost some 25 billion dollars have never been independently verified.

RAIPUR, India (AWW) - Under pressure from water rights activists, India's Chhattisgarh state is looking for ways to undo an eight year old privatisation contract.

   Chhattaisgarh became India's 26th state in November 2001, when it inherited a contract between a private company and a government corporation of the Madhya Pradesh (MP) - parts of which are now included in the new state.

By managing their own irrigation systems, farmers are helping to stop water theft, a chronic problem in Pakistan.

 

 

   The newly set up Area Water Boards (AWB) and Farmer’s Organisations (FO) have effectively prevented illegal use of the community resource and have also helped to generate revenue for the central coffers.

   By K B Ng 

The Indah Water Konsortium (IWK)

 

 

MARDAN, Pakistan (AWW) – Until a few years ago, Wahab Gul rarely had any reasons to travel to the city.

   Even with 10 acres of land he had nothing to sell, and life back in the village was a losing battle against water logging and salinity.

   He was on the bus to Mardan city, about 150km west of capital city Islamabad, with a shopping list that included stuff for his children and wife.

NEW DELHI (IPS) - For 20 years, thousands of people living on the banks of the Narmada river have kept their faith in India's independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, and used non-violence to protest the building of a mammoth dam that will submerge their homes. 

   The government, however, has often retaliated with tear gas and arrests to their sit-ins and hunger fasts -- most recently on Mar. 26 in the Indian capital, on scores of protestors from the Narmada Valley, in central India, who were camped outside the water ministry office for ten days. 

MEXICO CITY (IPS) - By replacing piston pumps with simple rope pumps, which are inexpensive and easy to install, rural water supply coverage in Nicaragua has risen 23 percent over the past decade, three times faster than in neighbouring countries.

   This was one of the examples cited at the Mar. 16-22 Fourth World Water Forum in Mexico, where 320 companies from 27 countries are displaying their products and services, many of which have already been applied in the world's poorest areas - although not always with success.

DHAKA (Asia Water Wire) - Environmentalists are fighting a desperate  battle against land developers, who have defied all bans and  continued to fill up vast areas in the periphery of the Bangladeshi  capital Dhaka that have been earmarked in the city's master plan for  flood retention plains.

   This battle has serious implications for the more than 12 million  people crammed in 360 square kilometres in Dhaka, one of the fastest  growing metropolises in the world where pressure on its limited land  resources is phenomenal.