PMDFC transforms wastewater pond into park

LAHORE: Punjab Municipal Development Fund Company (PMDFC) has completed a unique project of revitalisation of a wastewater pond and changed the site into a beautiful park and floating wetland.

The project was completed with a cost of Rs 10 million in Mughalpura (Laittan), tehsil Manawala, district Sheikhupura by the company and was recently inaugurated by UNICEF’s Senior Officers Hail Geshu, Sabahat Umbreen and Maleeha Sajjad Naqvi.

Talking to the scribe, PMDFC Chief Executive Syed Zahid Aziz said the project was completed in three months and was the first of its kind across the country.

He said the basic objective of the revitalisation of the wastewater pond project was to treat the wastewater and make it usable for the local community so that they can use the water for agriculture purposes “This project provides a wastewater treatment facility for the domestic sewage and will improve the overall environment and water quality of the area,” Zahid maintained. He said the project also met the National Environmental Quality Standards (NEQS) and will help in improving groundwater quality. The project will provide good environment for aquatic life and will improve ecology and quality of civic life besides becoming a recreational site for the local villages.

A beautiful park has also been constructed for the local population after the successful experiment of floating wetlands in the wastewater stream at Mananwala Mughalpura village of Sheikhupura, Zahid Aziz said and maintained that the floating wetlands project on the wastewater confluence with the park has been completed with the technical support of NIBGE while the financial support for the entire project was provided by UNICEF.

“Due to special plants planted in the floating wetlands in a wastewater pond, the sewage treatment process is being done naturally by the roots of these plants, which has eliminated the odor from the pond and cleaned the water,” he said.

The UNICEF Chief Officer said the project has been completed as a pilot project and they were happy that the PMDFC has given excellent results and completed the project ahead of schedule.

PMDFC Senior Programme Officer Zohaib Butt said earlier due to the stench in the pond, insects, especially mosquitoes and flies were present in abundance due to which malaria and stomach diseases were common in the area. Zahid said more than 1,200 people will be directly benefited from the project and similar projects will be launched in other areas of the province. He said the company was made to seek technical and financial resources from any bilateral and multilateral donor organisation. The General Body and the Board of Directors (BoDs), predominantly comprising the civil society, were the main steering and policy making authorities. Planning & Development (P&D), Finance and Local Government & Community Development (LG & CD) Departments have representation in BoDs of PMDFC.

PMDFC was actively seeking improvements in local governments and delivery of municipal services to promote its goal “Help Build Healthy Cities,” he said, maintaining that some other projects of PMDFC included improvement of Municipal Services, Dengue Monitoring Cell for Data Ganj Baksh Town Lahore and Rural Solid Waste Management Project. Zahid said the improvement of municipal services was being sought with the continuous monitoring of interventions like Performance Management System (PMS), Complaint Tracking System (CTS), and Computerised Financial Management System (CFMS) along with LG's Website Development.

The idea behind PMDFC was to maximise the potential of the cities of Punjab as the engine of growth with a prime objective to support the local governments of the province to improve the quality of municipal service delivery, he concluded.