Islamabad-Next to Oxygen, safe and clean drinking water is exponentially indispensable as well as utmost important for human survival since around 75 per cent body is water.

Notwithstanding being extremely essential for human body, over

38 million people do not have an access to clean and safe drinking water in the country, rather its paucity is surging.

Federal capital is faced with scarcity of potable water let alone other parts of the country are being supplied safe drinking water. Long queues of people holding bottles at filtration plants in the federal capital territory lend credence to safe water outage.

Mineral water companies are capitalizing the situation of water shortage and getting their water business flourished day-by-day in the name of supplying safe drinking water.

As the residents are already worried about irregular supply of water in the Federal Capital, the situation is going to get worse owing to the onslaught of sizzling summer approaching swiftly.

Talking to APP, Azaz Malik, a resident of Sector F8/1 said the issue was almost a decade old now but Capital Development Authority (CDA) could not come up with a sound plan. “The only solution to the issue for the civic body lies in supplying water through tankers. But this remedy also went ineffective besides being controversial among citizens,” he said.

When contacted, CDA Spokesperson Mazhar Hussain said sufficient potable water was being supplied to the capital city from the existing sources and no abnormal situation had been reported during this month.

He said there were two main sources of water supply to Islamabad, Simly and Khanpur dam, adding Simly dam is supposed to provide 42 million gallon per day but due to low level of water in the dam only 24 million gallon water per day was being supplied to the city.

Azaz Malik was of the view that the entire sector of F-8 was facing acute water shortage as supply of water was very low and underground water table was also depleting day-by-day.

The main opposition party in the capital’s local government, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), launched a protest campaign against water shortage in almost all the residential sectors.

The CDA spokesman further said, “Repair and maintenance of tube-wells as well as cleansing of filter beds have also been carried out and all-out efforts will be made to ensure smooth water supply during the upcoming summer season.”

Mazhar Hussain said water theft was also a major reason for water shortage and Mayor, Chairman CDA Sheikh Anser Aziz had directed to carry out regular monitoring in this regard so that complaints of water pilferage could be addressed. In this context, elected representatives would assist CDA Water Management Wing in their respective union councils, he added. `The CDA had also initiated an inquiry against officials involved in stealing water using illegal connections from the main supply line from Simly Dam, he added.

Water Supply Directorate of Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) had carried out repair and maintenance of 33 tube wells and two filtration plants, fixed 67 leakages and disconnected three illegal connections in addition to the cleansing of filter beds of different water installations during last month. Another senior official of the civic body told that repair and maintenance work on 40 kilometre long water supply line was also being carried out where leakages were being fixed and illegal connections were being removed from the main supply line.

He said PC-1 of the Ghazi Brotha water pipe line project had also been finalized. “The project was delayed for several years as provinces were not ready to give water to Islamabad, Rawalpindi from their share,” he said. He said, however, during a meeting of the Council of Common Interest (CCI) last year, all the provinces agreed on the project after which the federal government allowed CDA to initiate the project for bringing water from the River Indus. This project has been planned to conduct 655 million gallon per day water by year 205 in three phases, an official concerned told. Clean drinking water is a basic requirement of life thus its adequate supply must be ensured to all the citizens.

Though CDA’s efforts for provision of clean water to the residents are commendable, however veracity of the stentorian claim by the authority lies in the lasting solution to the water issue of the capital.