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IRIN News - PAKISTAN: Water channel gives new life to Bunji villagers.Hundreds of villagers in a remote part of Pakistan's Northern Areas will soon be self-sufficient thanks to an irrigation project by the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP). 'The government tried to build a water channel there, but it didn't last, and we were desperate to build another one,' father-of-six Salahuddin told IRIN in Bunji, located in the Astor Valley, some 55 km south of Gilgit, the administrative capital of the Northern Areas. 'There are very little jobs here, so this will be good for me and my family,' he said. 'The channel will give these people a new lease of life,' the AKRSP manager of the Astor Valley, Raja Safdar Khan, told IRIN in Bunji.