Rawalpindi : In order to avert problem of water crisis in coming years, the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) has completed work on the feasibility study of Rs1.25 billion Ghazi Barotha Project, which would be submitted to the Punjab government for review and approval.
Credible sources told ‘The News’ here Wednesday, that the summary of the feasibility report would be submitted to the provincial government within next week and after its approval work on this mega project would be initiated.
According to the plan, the water pipelines would be connected from Indus River to Khanpur Dam which would improve the supply of water in Rawalpindi city by 100 million gallons after its completion.
The chairman of Wasa, Ziaullah Shah while reacting agreed with the information provided by the official sources said that the cost of the project is estimated to Rs1.25 billion and it would be funded by the Punjab government.
He said the Punjab government would be funding the project and allocations would be made in the next financial year. “Work on the project would be completed in two years,” he claimed.
Ziaullah Shah said at present the level of ground water has receded rapidly and because of it tube wells which are one of the major source of water supply are failing to suck underground water which has fallen by 650 feet level. The situation of underground water level would further worsen in the coming years and the source of supplying water through tube wells would fail.
Similarly, while working on mega project of Ghazi Barotha Dam, the Punjab government would initiate measures on smalls dams as well in order to reserve water for using quota during hours of need.
While replying to query he said despite facing financial crunch, Wasa has not increased charges of water tariff since the last ten years. “Over the years charges of electricity have gone up. Moreover, increase in emoluments of government employees every year have become extra burden on Wasa to meet the revenue,” he added.
He said that Wasa is facing deficit of Rs1.25 billion annually because of not raising the charges of water tariff over the last ten years. The figure of deficit would jump further in coming years. Replying to another query, he said that the Punjab government is not ready to raise water tariff in Rawalpindi in the best interest of the consumers.
To yet another question, Ziaullah Shah that only 6 per cent consumers do not pay water tariff. The figure of water tax defaulters was high and more than 50 per cent but due to recovery campaign launched by Wasa, the percentage of defaulters has fallen to a considerable level.
