Ghazi Barotha Project imperative to overcome water shortage

Rawalpindi : Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) Chairman Muhammad Arif Abbasi stressed that the materialization of Ghazi Barotha Project is the only and best solution to overcome water problem for the next 40 to 50 years.

Giving the details, he said that present population of Rawalpindi city is 2.6 million including WASA served area of 1.6 million people.

The present demand of water in WASA area is 64 million gallons per day (mgd) whereas current production is 51 mgd.

Major sources of water for Rawalpindi are Rawal Dam, Khanpur Dam and tube-wells.

Due to massive depletion of ground water tube-wells are not feasible to meet future requirements of water.

Otherwise the present resources like tube-wells are failing to provide good results because of depletion of ground water level to a greater extent and climate change phenomena. The storage capacity of Rawal Dam and Khanpur Dam is also substantially reduced over the period of time.

Currently Wasa is already facing a shortfall of 13 mgd which is increasing in every coming year.

It is therefore dire need to develop new water resources preferably based on surface water in order to meet present shortfall but also cater for future growth of the city.

An integrated approach may be adopted by twin cities to resolve the issue of water supply issue.

In this regard a feasibility study to augment water supply for twin cities from River Indus has already been done and project was principally approved by Council of Common Interest (CCI) Government of Pakistan.

This is three phase project and 600 mgd water will be available after completion.

In the first phase 200 mgd water will be supplied to twin cities out which 100 mgd for Islamabad and 50 mgd each for city and Cantonment area.

The approximate cost of this project is 75 billion which will be shared by the Federal and Punjab Government accordingly.