Watermills a vanishing tradition

HARIPUR, May 2: Traditional watermills in the Haripur district are disappearing faster than water in the streams that run them. For the older generation it means goodbye to the nutritious wheat flour that the watermills, locally known as jandars, used to grind and loss of livelihood for the hundreds of skilled men who ran them. This correspondent saw the sad demise of the age-old jandars during a tour of the parts of district where watermills once flourished. Haripur city itself, whose name reflects the greenery of its lush pastures and agriculture fields, was once known for its watermills. There were over 32 watermills run with the water of Daur river – the main source of irrigation for the entire district – and these jandars were catering to the daily need of local population supplying wheat and maize flour. Built in a small 12x14ft room with small capital investment these jandars are the source of churning out nutritious and cheap flour like fine and super fine quality besides chokar (chaff) and sooji. In the presence of a large number of jandars people had never complained of flour shortage and used to get the commodity without any hassle, said Gulzar, a local jandroee or watermill operator whose family had been in this profession for the last over five decades. "Now there are over 20 flourmills in the district, which have failed to ensure supply of flour to about one million population of the city because owners of such mills often indulge in flour smuggling to Afghanistan while the wholesalers who buy flour from Punjab earn profits putting an extra burden on the consumers," said Gulzar. Besides, he said that the wheat flour of local mills and the one supplied from Punjab was of inferior quality, which often created health problems for the people. He said that the cost of wheat flour was increasing with the increasing rates of electricity, gas, petrol, diesel and taxes. "The flour produced by a jandar is cheap as the jandroee keeps one kg wheat for grinding 5-kg wheat and this whole exercise save electricity and manpower," he said. He stressed the need for preserving the traditional method of wheat grinding with the help of watermill as livelihood of dozens of jandroees was at stake.