Unhygienic water supply for Pindiites!

A shocking newspaper report graphically describes the bad quality of water supplied to the residents of Rawalpindi by the water authority; and getting paid for it too!

“How come the local administration, while catching all other wrongdoers, has allowed the water authority to indiscriminately pollute the water supplied to the people of Pindi as well as spreading diseases and getting away with it? It is poor governance,” laments Ahsen Raza.

“The condition of Shah Khalid Colony Service Road, as published, is wholly true. People keep their underground tanks regularly cleaned at regular intervals and add alum twice weekly, and yet the amount of slime that piles up is unbelievable. This is the water quality in the Satellite Town residential area also with no slums or dirty overcrowded areas,” says Asghar Ali.

“With the waterline at some positive pressure (gauge) and the surrounding area at practically zero pressure (gauge): how can mud and slime go into waterline? This defies logic and common sense. The real reason most likely is the damage of deep-well filter nets, and resulting accumulation of slime and mud being pumped into overhead tanks and from there to delivery pipelines to the consumers,” says Hussain Athar.

“Are tube-wells cleaned periodically? Are the wells drawn out and filter nets renewed at regular intervals? These do get damaged with the net outer surface getting choked with sand and the negative suction pressure inside the net wall cracking the filter nets when pumps are running. Wells need regular backwash and filter net repair and replacement after lifting the well casing. I wonder if this is done by water authority,” says Azhar Abbas.

“When I was working with a food processing industry (private sector) we did this regularly. The water quality off the pump delivery and the overhead tank outlet was analysed in our lab on a daily basis. This was important as random samples of our products both by us and the overseas makers (whose process was used in manufacture) were sent to overseas laboratories for hygiene and biological purity analysis,” adds Azhar.

“Why does not water authority adopt this method and have the same process done by the experts and for that they may charge hundreds of thousands of rupees annually. The fund can easily come from removing some of the idle overhead manpower at the higher level in water authority. One wonders if this will ever be done,” says Tariq Abbas, brother of Azhar.

Aouj Fatima says: “Who cares if a large number of our less fortunate citizens suffer from cholera and gastric intestinal diseases? We save money to disregard quality of water and pay probably a lot more in health facilities to cure diseases caused by poor quality water, a classic case of robbing Peter to pay Paul.”