Asad Umar reviews water supply from Tarbela to twin cities

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar on Thursday chaired a review meeting on bulk water supply from the Tarbela reservoir to Islamabad and Rawalpindi through video conference.

Special Assistant to PM on CDA Ali Nawaz Awan, the secretary Planning, the member Infrastructure, representatives from the Ministry of Interior and senior officials attended the meeting.

MMP consultants briefed the meeting about the current status of feasibility study for master planning of Bulk Water Transmission (ICT & Rawalpindi). The consultants have seven months to complete their report and their team will begin work in mid-October. The project envisages supply of water to the twin cities through surface as well as groundwater channels. The project is for supplying clean drinking water from the Indus River System at Tarbela Dam to the twin cities. At present, the demand of water of the twin cities is 440 million gallons per day, half of which is being supplied from various sources. The gap of 220 million gallons per day will be fulfilled by this project.

Asad directed the MMP to complete the feasibility study expeditiously. He asked the secretary Planning to contact the provincial government regarding land acquisition. The federal minister said land acquisition matters should be finalized as soon as possible.