PESHAWAR, Aug 10: The Nazim Town 1, Haroon Bilour, has said water rates have not been increased in the city and the recent bills have been sent according to the 1999 revised rates.

Addressing a press conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Saturday, he said the decision to increase water rates was taken in 1999 but it was not implemented in 2000-2001 and the consumers were receiving their bills according to the old rates.

Bilour said the basic priorities of town one were sanitation, supply of clean drinking water and development of the old sewerage lines in the city.

To meet the drinking water crisis in the city, he said, work on construction of eight more tubewells was going on. The project is being carried out with the cooperation of Unicef.

The recent drinking water crisis, he added, was not only due to shortage of drinking water tubewells but the persistent drought had also lowered the watertable to 30 feet.

Bilour said several complaints were received from various people about gambling in the recently held industrial exhibitions in various parts of the city. Though the town earned Rs4 million from these exhibitions, in the larger interest of the people it had been decided that such kinds of exhibitions would not be held in future.

Merit, he said, was the only criterion in awarding various contracts of development works in the town. The tenders were properly floated in the newspapers, he added. However, he urged the journalists to point out the mistakes or the sub-standard work of the contractors.

About the sanitation condition of the city, he said a project with the cooperation of Unicef would be launched very soon to improve the sanitation condition of the city.

Bilour further said that to provide easy recreation facilities to the people of the city a plan was under consideration to develop the Shahi Bagh in the city like the army stadium.

He said 400 sodium lights would be erected in various parts of the city. Food street programme would also be started in Jinnah Park and Yunus Park in the city very soon.—APP