LG Department complains to PM Office about funds scarcity

PESHAWAR: The Local Government has informed the Prime Minister’s Office that non-availability of funds remains one of the main challenges for water supply schemes in Peshawar and said it needs Rs1.5 billion to replace rusted pipes, rehabilitate outdated water supply systems in the city.

The Local Government Election and Rural Development Department (LGE&RDD) sent information to the Prime Minister’s Office on October 22. It was based on the presentations of the main water supply and sanitation company operating in the provincial metropolis, Water and Sanitation Services Peshawar (WSSP).

The series of the presentations to the Prime Minister’s Office given by service delivery departments is part of the 100-day plan on which like other departments the LGE&RDD is also updating the provincial as well as federal governments.

The department also informed the PM Office that irregular urbanisation, non-existence of land use legislation and the establishment of unplanned housing schemes, commercial plazas without entertaining the universal prerequisite for construction footprint are also impediments that have rendered the water supply systems insufficient to provide clean drinking water to the dwellers.

Updating the Prime Minister Office, the officials of the LGE&RDD said that they sent information about the working of the company providing clean drinking water in the main city of the province.

It said that non-availability of funds for replacement of rusted pipes, rehabilitation of outdated water supply systems and pumping machinery in WSSP is still a huge problem and the company tentatively needs Rs1.5 billion.

These systems, it said, were not covering the areas of cantonment and Hayatabad.

The department said that 595 tube-wells operating in the city were providing 71 million gallon water per day (MGPD) to its 1.97 million population except for the cantonment board areas, while the demand for drinking water is about 79 MGPD. Thus, the four towns and city areas face a shortfall of the eight MGPD clean drinking water.

It informed the PM Office that the city would have 1.7 million connections by June next year against the existing 92000 connections in the city.

The department added that through tests conducted over the last one year it has been assessed that 87 percent of the consumers are receiving safe water at the consumer level, while 13 percent were getting unsafe water.

It also informed the prime minister office that elimination of contamination through leakage control and rectification of water supply pipes crossing drains was being carried out and 268 kilometres of the rusted pipeline have been replaced since September 2014.