Islamabad - Due to weak and ineffective planning of the Capital Development Authority, there is fear of water scarcity in the federal capital during the next two years.
Officials said that water shortage could hit the capital severally during the next two years as the CDA had taken no solid measures to overcome the issue. Population of the capital has doubled but steps have not been taken by CDA to tackle the issue of growing population, they said.
It was also slackness of the authority that out of total 39 water tankers, only 14 are available to supply water while 15 are stranded in workshops or without tyres. Unfortunately, the remaining 10 water tankers are insufficient to meet demands of the residents of the federal capital, they said.
The officials said that water theft was a common issue and almost 0.1 million gallons of water were being theft during transportation while 500 gallons water was wasted due to negligence of the officials concerned while the CDA has no money for overhauling the tube wells and water filtration plants, which have been installed after spending billions of rupees.
Out of total 26 tube wells, only 6 are operational while three water filtration plants are working out of the total 14 plants. Machinery of a few tube wells has been either stolen or damaged.
On the other hand, Chief Local Government (Metropolitan) Asad Mehboob Kiyani is eyeing at budget to address issues of water while Mayor Sheikh Ansar Aziz had made frequent promises to residents regarding supplying of water.
The CDA sources said that Rs1 billion were required for supplying water to 0.8 million population of the capital while the Metropolitan Corporation was taking loans for the last 4 months to pay salaries to its employees. Over 2,000 contractual employees were not paid for the last four months, they said.
The sources further said that CDA had asked the government to pay its Rs3 billion but despite passage of many months, the government neither responded nor approved the budget amount. On the other hand, water supply directorate of CDA has been receiving complaints but tankers are only sent to those residents who pay hefty amounts.
In order to supply water to the residents, 39 water tankers and 14 filtration plants were purchased with a cost of Rs2 billion. These water filtration plants were installed in different sectors while dozens of staffers were recruited but these plants developed faults soon while machinery of these plants was disappeared instead of rectifying the faults.
Most of the filtration plants have become rusty. Ironically, if any resident lodges complaint against the water supply directorate, the supply of water to entire sector is halted, they revealed.