A project costing Rs66 billion has been prepared to bring water from Indus River to Islamabad
Federal Capital primarily fulfil its water requirements from the Simly Dam and `50 tube wells along with the Shahdara waterworks, the Saidpur waterworks etc, but the city always lands in drinking water shortage with every summer arrival.
The federal government has decided to spend a huge amount of budget in order to avoid any future shortage of water, the existing water supply lines federal capital will be replaced soon as Rs400 million has been allocated for the purpose.
Minister for Interior Ahsan Iqbal while speaking in the National Assembly call of attention notice by female parliamentarians including Khalida Mansoor, Shakila Luqman and Zeb Jaffar on the non-supply of clean drinking water to the residents of Islamabad, especially in sectors I-10, G-6 and G-7.
Last year, due to acute shortage of water in Capital Development Authority’s supply system of the federal capital and other water supply correspondents of I-sector including I-9, I-10 badly failed to provide drinking water, while G-7, G-8, G- 9, G-10 and G-11 were also facing severe problems during the summers.
Ahsan Iqbal said around Rs 400 million has been set aside to improve the water supply condition and replace the damaged water pipelines to save the water and for this purpose already Rs66 billion has been prepared to bring water from Indus River to Islamabad to meet the growing water requirements of the capital.
The federal Minister for Interior further said on point of order China has been requested to provide finances for the project under the CPEC and we hope work on this project will start this year.
He further said that presently the total demand of water of the federal capital is 120 million gallon while the capital had only 56 million gallon water the available resources and the total of 35 tube wells, 15 are out of order and work is underway to make operational these tube wells.
Islamabad face major crunch during summer season and pre-monsoons when water rationing is imposed; people throng the complaint centres, clamour for water tankers, an arrangement which CDA cannot meet adequately
The recent study conducted by NESPAK indicated that there is around 33% loss of water in the domestic water supply system. The major loss is associated due to leaky pipelines, breakage and faulty control systems (valves, etc.) and other losses.