close
Thursday March 28, 2024

CDA resumes water supply from Rawal Dam after 30 years

By Mobarik A. Virk
April 03, 2021

Islamabad : The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has re-claimed its share of two million gallons per day (MGD) of water from Rawal Dam after a long gap of 30 years. The decision was taken recently by the Chairman CDA, who also is the Chief Commissioner of Islamabad, Amir Ali Ahmed and it was formally implemented from Friday.

The Chairman Capital Development Authority said that the CDA had abstained from availing its share of water from Rawal Dam for three decades because in the past there was enough water available from Simly Dam, the deep sunk tube wells and from Khanpur dam.

The CDA Spokesperson, Asif Ali, Director of Public Relations said that there were a few hiccups with the Punjab Government to regain the share of 2 MGD but those were sorted out amicable with the Chief Minister of Punjab, Usman Buzdar.

At present, the Capital Development Authority is supplying 60 MGD of water to the residents and utilities in the federal capital. The largest share comes from the tubewells, which is 24.5 MGD. Another 24 MGD is being drawn from Simly water reservoir, 8.5 MGD is being procured from Khanpur Dam and the three Waterworks located in Shahdara, Nurpur and Saidpur contributed 2 MGD.

Now, there will be the addition of another 2 MGD from Rawal Dam, which will help the Authority provide some relief to the residents, especially in sectors G-7/4, I-8 and I-9 and to G-9.

The spokesman for the Capital Development Authority said that the water treatment plant in the ‘Park Area’ near the Sports Complex, which was dysfunctional for the last 30 years has been re-activated and is now fully operational.

He said that a new power generator has also been installed to ensure that any power disruption may not lead to wastage of water or suspension of water supply from this source.

“After the three-tier treatment procedure of water to ensure it should be clean and fit for human consumption, it will be pumped to two water reservoirs behind Shakarparian. From those reservoirs the water will flow with gravity and there will be no need to install any water pumps there,” the Director PR of CDA said.

Over the last almost a decade the federal capital has always faced severe water shortage during the summer season. This is because of the climate change as not only the rainfall has during monsoon has gone down considerable but it is not snowing in the catchment area of Simly reservoir as it used to be in the past.

This year especially the Simly reservoir catchment area has received very little snow and there are chances that Simly water reservoir may not have enough water stored for the summer season.

The DPR CDA said that the additional 2 MGD may not be much but it will indeed help provide relief to the residents of G-7/4, I-9 and G-9 sectors during the hot summer season.

In the past years the officials in the Water Supply Directorate of the CDA had been pointing out that the biggest source of water for Islamabad, the deep sunk tube wells were falling short of the required output because the subsoil water level in many areas of the federal capital has gone down.

A number of these tube wells were shifted or sunk even deeper to draw enough water. The Capital Development Authority Chairman has recently taken a new initiative of creating ‘Wetlands’ at appropriate spots in the federal capital which will not only help clean contamination from water but will also help recharge the subsoil water level to some extent.

The Chairman CDA has directed the concerned officials in the Environment Division to pursue the ‘Wetlands project’ more aggressively as well as employing other measures to trap maximum of rainwater, part of the ‘Rainwater Harvesting’ project, a favorite of former Capital Development Authority Chairman Imtiaz Inayat Elahi.