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Thursday March 28, 2024

Rural areas dumping sewage in streams of Rawal Lake, NA told

By Muhammad Anis
March 16, 2018

Islamabad: The National Assembly was informed on Thursday that there was no proper system of sewers or treatment facility in rural areas of the federal capital like Bhara Kahu, Bani Gala, Muslim Colony, Barri Imam and they were dumping their sewage into fresh water streams of Rawal Lake.

In written reply to a question, the Minister of State for Capital Administration and Development (CAD) that the rural areas of Islamabad, the beautiful capital of Pakistan, were deprived of proper system of sewer and treatment.

The house was told the Supreme Court of Pakistan took Suo Moto case No. 13 of 2010 and directed the Capital Development Authority (CDA) and Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration to stop sewage directly being thrown in fresh streams of Rawal Lake by illegal and unlawful settlements.

In all 124 cases were registered in the Environmental Protection Tribunal (EPT) against the residents of Bari Imam Bhara Kahu, Bani Gala and Muslim Colony who were dumping raw sewage into the fresh water streams, of catchment areas of Rawal Lake. Some legal notices have been issued to housing societies including National Police Foundation, Multi Professional Services Cooperative, Pakistan Medical Cooperative Housing Society Federation of Employees Cooperative Housing Society, etc. for discharging untreated waste water into rainwater stream. In the process of Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) approvals for housing societies it is mandatory for the proponent to designate a site for the installation of sewerage treatment plant.

After carrying out comprehensive study of the Rawal Lake catchments area CDA and ICT administration have identified spots for four sewerage treatment plants and prepared a PC-I and submitted it to the Planning & Development Division for securing funds for the purpose.

The Minister said the CDA had already installed two waste water treatment plants with capacity of 17 and 5 million gallons per day in sector I-9 to treat sewage of the city claiming the capacity of these sewerage treatment plants is sufficient to treat city sewage. In reply to another question, the National Assembly was informed that 5043 posts are lying vacant which includes promotion and direct recruitment quota.

There are total 19,453 Number of posts sanctioned in CDA against which 14,410 number of employees are working in CDA. There are 11 vacant posts in BPS-20 and 58, 18, 206 and 224 vacant posts in BPS-19, 18, 17 and 16 respectively.

Majority of CDA employees were transferred to the Municipal Corporation of Islamabad (MCI) but still they are drawing salaries from their parent department. The present government during its tenure had made no recruitment in the civic body.

The National Assembly was also informed that the Pakistan EPA had conducted a detailed survey of Industrial Estate of Islamabad situated in sectors I-9, I-10 and Kahuta Triangle to identify and categorise the number and types of industries.

There are 12 steel units which are causing pollution in Sector I-9/ I10, despite strict monitoring and legal action. Nine steel mills have installed on-line dust monitoring system, which is under monitoring by Pak-EPA and their efficiency is regularly checked. Legal action has been initiated by Pak-EPA against the non-compliant steel mills for issuance of Environmental Protection Order and its subsequent enforcement through ICT administration.