IHC moved against supply of contaminated water in capital

Islamabad
A petition has been filed in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) alleging that the residents of the federal capital were forced to drink polluted and contaminated water on account of CDA's negligence.
The petition sought directions for the CDA to improve its water filtration plants in the federal capital to ensure safe drinking water supply to the residents.
Petitioner Iftikhar Hussain, a resident of Sector I-10/2, has nominated the Capital Development Authority (CDA) chairman, CDA Water Management Cell director general and the Pakistan Environment Protection Agency (Pak-EPA) chairman as respondents.
The petitioner contended before the court that the CDA and its Water Management Cell installed some 28 water filtration plants in the city for provision of safe and filtered drinking water to the residents by spending millions of rupees. However, the present conditions of these filtration plants is deplorable due to non-maintenance. Most of these plants have missing taps, rusty pipes, broken tiles and garbage littered around.
Moreover, for a filtration plant to work, it is necessary to change its filters every two months but in the federal capital these filters were not changed since they were installed, the petitioner alleged. As a result, most of these plants are dysfunctional and supplying polluted water.
The petitioner contended that it seems the CDA is giving very low priority to safe drinking water. The CDA has recently handed over the management of these water filtration plants to private persons after authorizing them. But the CDA and its Water Management Cell never bothered to take water samples and test in laboratory verifying that whether or not water supplied by filtration plants is safe for consumption.
The petitioner prayed to the court to direct the civic body to change rusty pipes installed at filtration plants, change filters and take samples verifyingthe quality of water.