Masawati-Top, Larnoo (Anantnag), Jan 12: As water gushed from a newly installed tap, Bashir Ahmad Kasana stood silently inside his home, watching what he described as a moment seven decades in the making.
“I was born here, I grew old here, and this is the first time I am seeing drinking water come into our house,” said Kasana, 68, a resident of Masawati-Top, a remote village perched atop the Pir Panjal Mountain range in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district. “For 70 years, we lived without it.”
Kasana said the village, with around 70 households, had no nearby source of potable water.
“There is no spring or stream near this village,” he said. “We and our womenfolk had to walk nearly three Kilometers to fetch water from springs or go to another village about four Kilometers downhill.”
Women residents said the daily struggle for water defined life in the village.
“It would take more than three hours just to fetch water, and our entire day would be spent doing this,” said Shakeela Begum, 40. “Even during harsh weather, we were forced to walk that distance because water is life.”
Begum said the task became even harder during the winter and rainy seasons.
“In bad weather, it was dangerous, but there was no alternative,” she said.
Others described how families improvised to survive.
“Some people used donkeys or horses to bring water,” said Safeena Bano, 30. “During rains, we collected water in buckets, and during snowfall, we melted snow and boiled it before using.”
Residents said the arrival of tap water inside their homes was something they never thought possible.
“Seeing water flow from our taps is something we never imagined,” Kasana said. “Some families had already installed taps in hope, and now others are doing the same.”
Villagers credited the development to the central government’s Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) under the Har Ghar Nal scheme, launched in 2019–20.
“This drinking water has been provided under the Jal Jeevan Mission,” Kasana said. “We are thankful to the government and the Public Health Engineering (PHE) Department. Without their support, this would not have happened.”
As the village celebrated the occasion, residents said the moment carried a meaning far beyond convenience.
“For people elsewhere, getting water may be routine,” Kasana said. “For us, after 70 years, it is not just water. It is a lifeline.”
