Wasa installs live rain tracking system in City

LAHORE: Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) has installed live rain tracking system at all important ponding points in the provincial metropolis that is automatically reporting accumulation of rainwater with depth measurement.

This is helping the agency to take prompt and appropriate action for effective troubleshooting especially in the current monsoon, said Wasa Managing Director Syed Zahid Aziz in an exclusive talk with The News here Tuesday. He said the system had replaced the centuries old manual monitoring and reporting system, which always contained errors as well as needed extra manpower.

Now whether its monsoon or not, accumulation of water at almost 22 sore points during rains in Lahore will be recorded automatically. These points included all the underpasses along Lahore Canal, areas along route of under-construction Orange Line Metro Train, Main Boulevard Gulberg, Salamatpura, Laxmi Chowk, Mughalpura, Kashmir Road, Nabha Road, Nawab Town, Ali Town, Chowk Nakhuda, GPO Chowk, Mozang, Nicholson Road, Qurtaba Chowk, Revaz Garden, Westwood Colony, Judicial Colony, Aziz Road, Samanabad, Wahdat Colony, Harbanspura, Regal Chowk, Majeed Nizami Road, Begum Road, Waris Road, Queen’s Road, Empress Road, Karim Park, Mohni Road, Band Road, Islampura, Karishn Nagar, Old Anarkali, Jain Mandir, Bilal Ganj, Sir Aga Khan Road, Main Boulevard Iqbal Town and portions of Johar Town.

Normally these areas submerge in rainwater due to the elevation of city roads and create difficulties for the citizens and road users besides posing health hazards as it becomes host to insect-borne diseases especially dengue.

Trouble-shooting pace and storm-water management of Wasa has improved as the present management has adopted a proactive approach to deal with the old issues, said Wasa MD adding “Currently, whenever it rains Wasa and LDA staffers measure the water depth manually without usage of any IT equipment. Once the water level is reported, action is taken in that area to drain the water. This is usually done with the help of dewatering sets, which takes a lot of time. But now through technological interventions Wasa has managed to reduce the reporting time, which improved responding time of Wasa.”

“With the help of Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) Wasa will now be able to monitor these points live and in case of any ponding the matter would be resolved, said Wasa MD adding PITB has automated the measurement of these areas with live tracking.

The system starts working as soon as rain starts or water through any other sources starts accumulating on roads. This will not only help the Wasa management to take prompt action on these points as well as intelligently utilise agency’s human resources, which were stationed in these area before, just to measure and report the water level.

On the other hand, city residents seemed happy with the new system and said that through the new system grave complaints regarding municipal services would be redressed automatically even without registering a formal complaint. “We cannot raise the locality to the level of the surrounding areas so ponding is inevitable, but if the agency can drain that water before it starts breeding health and commuting problems, it would be really special”, said Faisal Javed, a resident of Ichhra.

Lahore Commissioner Bilal Lodhi said that introduction of IT interventions in provision of municipal services is a very good thing. He said this will reduce reporting time and the authorities have more time for better planning and execution.