As happens every year during the months of April, May and June, residents of Rawalpindi and Islamabad are suffering from a severe water shortage. In Sector G-13, Islamabad, a water tanker costs around Rs4,000. Using water tankers is neither cost effective nor convenient. A long-term solution to this problem is to build small dams at the foothills of the Margalla Hills and in and around the twin cities to allow rainwater to seep into the ground and stored instead of being wasted.
Another way is rainwater harvesting where rainwater is fed into the ground through bore holes to raise the water table. These steps need to be taken now before water shortages become a serious problem. It is pertinent to mention here that apart from the Simly and Khanpur dams, which were completed in the early 1980s, no other big dam has been built to supply drinking water to the twin cities. This shows ‘great planning’ on the part of governments that ruled over us in these 40 years.
Syed Hussein El-Edroos
Islamabad