The people of Paro are busy battling and sabotaging each other's community water supply systems over disputes on an increasingly scarce drinking and irrigation water supply. Representatives of people from the three gewogs of Dopshari, Doteng and Lango are in the Thimphu high court over the former two's refusal to share their excess water with Lango even on government orders. In between, even the newly constructed concrete water tank and iron pipes for Lango were demolished with patangs and hammers overnight. In Dogar gewog, a water supply pipeline was also cut and destroyed. In Hungrel gewog, close relatives uprooted each other's rice saplings when one side found that their irrigation water supply had been tampered with. The worst hit area is Shabha gewog, where people from a nearby chiwog have destroyed tanks and main pipelines supplying water to the Shelngo chiwog. In the same gewog, villagers from the nearby Tilley village had demolished the water tanks and pipes of Gangri village. With acute shortage of both drinking and irrigation water, residents are busy patrolling with patangs their water lines at night. "A woman was murdered from the Shelngo chiwog by a neighbouring community controlling the water source in the past and it's likely to be repeated again,' said Thinley, a Shelngo villager. There are many more similar cases of sabotage of water resources all over Paro, which have been getting worse in the last five years over the sharing of increasingly scarce water. This scarcity, according to dzongkhag officials, has been caused by a mixture of factors like drying water sources, poor planning, no technical manpower and lack of clear water laws. The above findings fly in the face of the ministry of health's claims that it covered most of Paro under the rural water supply scheme. The ministry of agriculture has also not been able to cover the upper reaches of the valley adequately for irrigation. Ap Wangdi from Shabha said, "These health people did help instal some pipes and tanks but most of them don't have water in them due to poor planning and no upgrades.' According to Paro Dzongdha, Namgay Wangchuk, the main problem is being caused by the refusal of most local communities to share even their excess water with nearby water-deficient communities citing ancestral rights. "This monopolisation of water has been caused by the absence of a Water Act, still under draft, which has to clearly define water sources as government property,' he said. Dzongkhag engineer Kuenga said, "Our major problem has been that the earlier system of having a specialised engineer for water has been done away with, coupled with the same old water systems supporting growing numbers,' Am Tshering said. "Our gewog tshogchung, tshogpas and gups have completely failed us. Some even talk of excluding new families from water supply schemes or charging more money, which we can't afford.' The most badly hit gewogs are Shaba, Lango, Dogar, Naja, and Hungrel. "Paro is one of the most developed dzongkhags, but it's also a dzongkhag with the highest water problem in the country,' said a dzongkhag official.