Khairuddin Shadani | Chitral Today
CHITRAL, Feb 8, 2026: The remote village of Roi in Lotkoh valley of Chitral is facing a severe drinking water crisis, with its around 1,500 residents deprived of safe and clean water.
The village comprises 128 households and hosts important educational institutions, including an Aga Khan Education Services secondary school with nearly 700 students and a government school attended by around 100 children.
Despite this, neither the schools nor the wider community have access to safe drinking water, making daily life extremely difficult for residents.
A few years ago, a scheme was launched to bring water from a source located three to four kilometers away. However, due to poor planning and substandard construction, the project failed to deliver its intended benefits.
Local residents told ChitralToday that the water source itself was contaminated, forcing people to consume unsafe water. As a result, cases of waterborne diseases reportedly increased in the village, including a rise in hepatitis C, and some deaths were also attributed to the use of polluted water.
Since December last year, even this flawed water supply has completely stopped, further worsening the situation. Villagers now struggle daily to obtain even small quantities of water. During winter, rainfall, and snowfall, women are forced to walk long distances carrying water containers, often slipping on icy paths and sustaining injuries that sometimes require hospital treatment. Livestock in the area has also been severely affected due to the shortage of water.
Residents say that fetching a single bucket of water has become a daily ordeal, highlighting that the lack of clean drinking water is not merely an issue of convenience but a matter of human dignity, health, and survival.
The crisis has raised serious questions about governance and development priorities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which has been under the same ruling party for the past 13 years. Locals argue that when an entire village remains without access to a basic necessity like clean water, it reflects not just administrative failure but misplaced priorities.
They lament that while political activities and campaigns continue to receive resources and attention, remote areas like Roi are neglected when it comes to essential services.
The people of Roi have appealed to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, the Public Health Engineering Department, and the Aga Khan Agency for Habitat Pakistan to intervene immediately. They stressed that both the problem and its solution are clear, and what is needed now is seriousness, prioritization, and practical action to ensure that 1,500 people are finally provided with safe drinking water.
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