Minister of State for PHE, Irrigation & Flood Control, Forest, Animal, Sheep Husbandry, Cooperative and Fisheries, Mir Zahoor Ahmad today called for taping of ground water at a large scale to overcome acute shortage of drinking water, mostly in rural Kashmir.Chairing a meeting with the officers of PHE Department, convened to discuss and review the drought like situation due to prolonged dry spell in the State besides water scarcity in Pampore Constituency, Mir Zahoor stressed upon the concerned to work with utmost dedication and asked them to prepare a drought action plan to tackle the growing water crisis.Taking stock of position of water availability in Pampore Constituency, the Minister asked the PHE authorities to speed up the pace of work on all ongoing water supply schemes including Kandizal. He also asked them to prepare Detailed Project Report (DPR) for setting up of Over Head Tank (OHT) for Dasso village and submit the same to the concerned quarter for arrangement of fundsIt was informed in the meeting that the construction work on WSS KarnabalAlochbagh, Sathpukhren, Dasso and AIIMS Awantipora sanctioned under NABARD with an estimated cost of Rs 16.93 crore are in full swing. It was also apprised that an amount of Rs 76 lakh is to be required for land compensation for these schemes excluding WSS Sathpukhren.Chief Engineer, PHE Kashmir Abdul Waheed assured the meeting that the decisions taken with regard to improvement and up-gradation of PHE schemes in Pampore Constituency to be addressed on priority.He also informed that due to the deficient rainfall during 2017-18, especially since September 2017 onwards, most of the surface water sources have dried up or depleted. He said that water table in some areas has also gone down resulting in less discharge of ground water.Among others, Chief Engineer PHE Jammu A K Gandotra, Senior Officers of PHE Department were present in the meeting.