Save historic watermills on capital outskirts

Islamabad:In this age of global warming and climate change, there is worldwide stress on using renewable and clean sources of energy including solar panels, windmills, watermills, hydel power and geothermal energy.

But a series of historical and cultural monuments of renewable green energy is facing the threat of extinction at the hands of a housing authority connected with powers-that-be of this Islamic Republic threatening partly Islamabad, the Beautiful.

In cooperation with CDA, the DHA has chosen part of Zone-IV, envisaged to be food basket for Islooites by framers of the original Master Plan, to establish a new housing society in the name of Margalla Enclave. It is situated on either side of Kurri Road, supposed to be widened connecting Park Road with Simly Dam Road with the new name of Jinnah Avenue one does not know when.

In the old times, Pindi or Rawalpindi was a town or may be a village, as “pind” in Punjabi means village, but Kurri Shehar was the name of the area signifying it to be a city. Its sweet earth containing fertile ingredients, including red sand, has been very popular in the Federal Metropolis for decades. In gardens and parks of the Capital, earth brought from Kurri by tractor trolleys and dumpers is invariably being used to increase fertility of flower beds, grassy lawns and vegetable fields. Hundreds of tractor-loads of earth from Kurri provided necessary support and nutrients to flowers, threes, plants, lawns and fruits of Quaid-i-Azam University also.

Kurri was famous for its wholesale vegetable and fruit mandi once upon a time and growers from other regions including Murree brought their fresh products here for sale. The residents of Rawalpindi were dependent upon veggies and fruits sold here.

When the fertile earthen land will emerge as a jungle of concrete and iron when the housing project completes, the plantation and beautification drive in ICT will feel its heat. The powerful whiz kids of Margalla Enclave are targeting another historical and environmental site in Chhupran, a suburb of Kurri, not known to new residents of Enclaves around but people from even Murree who know this bring their grains here for milling into flour.

There were 5 water-run 'chakkies' or flourmills. A nullah coming from Pind Begowal, fed by springs and brooks in hills behind Pakistan Navy Farms has been running them 11-month a year reportedly for the last two hundred years.

The nullah enters Chhupran making a picturesque gorge and a brook is separated on the higher side of the terrain to give it sufficient power to run the circular stones that grind the grain in the downstream.

It is a cold process unlike the modern flourmills which rise the temperature of grains burning its nutritious vitamins and taste. The process was repeated five times in less than half a kilometre with each mill grinding 70 to 75 maunds of grain per day including wheat, maize, millet, barley and gram.

With the passage of time, the ownership shifted to descendants. Three of the new owners shifted to other jobs. Now only two mills are in working condition. The village in past had 500 households but now only lucky 7 are left, obviously all facing eviction.

Talking to this scribe, one of the owners, Muhammad Bashir, appealed to the high-ups of the Margalla Enclave to let the mills remain there whosoever operates them. Providing flour without losing its vitality due to its cold process with renewable green energy is very desirable.

The authorities can turn the valley into a tourist resort and convert remaining three mills into small hydel power stations also giving its sister organisations incentive to repeat the act. They can revive the remaining three mills again. This way, Margalla Enclave administration can fulfil corporate social responsibility (CSR) also.