7.6m people to get clean drinking water by year-end

LAHORE:Till the end of current year, as many as 7.6 million people across Punjab will get clean drinking water from the projects initiated by Punjab Aab-e-Pak Authority (PAPA).

During the year 2021, PAPA has planned to initiate 14 projects of supplying clean drinking water to the residents of various cities and so far it has completed six projects while the remaining eight projects will be completed till end of the year.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) PAPA Syed Zahid Aziz said this while talking to The News here on Tuesday. He said average cost of a clean drinking water supply plant was around Rs 3 million, which was minimum in Punjab. PAPA was established through Punjab Aab-e-Pak Authority Act on March 25, 2019 and final amendment August 17, 2019. With a nominal staff of 30 members, PAPA took the gigantic task of completing over 1500 new clean drinking water supply schemes during the year 2021, the CEO said. Syed Zahid Aziz said that by the end of December 2021, as many as 1,538 Marakaz-e-Aab will be completed in various districts of Punjab. He said besides installing new plants, PAPA was also repairing the old water filtration plants.

CEO PAPA revealed that 2,960 new water supply schemes will be completed under the ADP 2021-22 which included Marakaz-e-Aab and boreholes. Talking about the administrative expenses, he said till February 21, the total administrative expenses of the authority were Rs 2million. He said the authority was completing its projects thorough better planning and adapting modern and innovative cost effective solutions.

“Instead of using approach of installing only UF/RO filtration plants, the authority is using processes including conventional filtration, chlorination, surface water treatment through coagulation, flocculation and filtration, manually operated ultra-filtration pumps etc for sustainability and simplicity of operations based on raw water quality and other factors,” Syed Zahid Aziz said, adding total beneficiaries of PAPA’s projects by end of 2022 will be around 15 million.

Answering a question about the difference between Saaf Pani Company and PAPA, he said the previous model was very expensive and from 2014 till 2019 a total expenditure of over Rs 5billion was made while in the new model the administrative expensive were reduced drastically.

“We didn’t go for a very big and high tech office in a private house with unnecessary staff,” he said, adding PAPA’s office was established in a portion of Wasa head office while some senior officials from different Wasa were transferred to PAPA.

The reason for low administrative and other expenditure was our business model, which included one-year operation and maintenance of every project in its PC-1, the CEO PAPA said.He said organisations like Islamic Aid, Unicef, Al-Khidmat Foundation and, etc. who were willing to support O&M and social mobilization were engaged. He said the operation and maintenance of each plant will later be transferred to the user committees.

Another key feature of PAPA’s projects was technical audit of all existing filtration plants and taking remedial actions to repair them, he maintained. PAPA was actively working in nine divisions of Punjab including Rawalpindi, Sargodha, Gujranwala, Lahore, Faisalabad, Sahiwal, Multan, Bahawalpur and DG Khan.

So far projects were already awarded in Faisalabad, Lahore, Okara, Rawalpindi and DG Khan and Sahiwal divisions while before June 2021 contracts will be awarded in Rawalpindi, DG Khan, Gujranwala, Sargodha, Rajanpur Tribal areas, Multan and Bahawalpur.In the end, he appreciated the efforts and support of Punjab governor and Chief Minister Usman Buzdar. He also hailed the working of PAPA Chairman Dr Shakeel Ahmad Khan.