Water Shortage in Zhemgang City!

The house that I am living in has five taps. But, I see no water flowing from even one for days on stretch. Often, either of the meals (mostly breakfast) has to be forgone unless there is leftover food that I can scavenge on.

Quite often, I need to drive towards RDTC, around little more than a kilometer uphill to fetch few jerry cans of water which would not even suffice half a day!

To pay Nu. 5,500 as house rent in a place like Zhemgang and not have enough water at home is more frustrating than a sad tale to tell. The extra fuel that is consumed while fetching water from RDTC and elsewhere is but only escalating the day-to-day expenditure.

When there is an acute shortage of water in a very small settlement like Zhemgang, I regret for blaming Thimphu City Corporation for not delivering enough water while I was in Thimphu a couple of months ago. TCC has to look after more than one lakh people living in the city and I doubt if there is a populace of even 10,000 people in Zhemgang; the ratio is 1:10, even if Zhemgang has 10,000.

Zhemgang has a very abundant forest cover and logically, a problem like water shortage is the least expected. What I cannot comprehend is whether Zhemgang does not really have enough water resources or whether it is the inefficiency on the part of the people involved in delivering water services. The technical problems in the building that I live in may be culpable, perhaps. 

This problem has been persisting for quite a time. The Prime Minister commanded to solve it during his visit, last year. I feel it is recklessly daring on the part of the authorities concerned to leave the problem still unresolved.