January 10, 2003	Friday	Ziqa’ad 6, 1423

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RAWALPINDI, Jan 9: Information minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed has said arrangements will have to be made to supply water to the city from Ghazi Barotha Dam as water in the Khanpur Dam may not be sufficient to meet the increasing requirements of the people.

Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of Shamsabad Water Supply System completed under the urban water supply and sanitation project, on Thursday, he said water shortage was becoming an important factor in daily life of the people. Water would form the basis of future politics, the minister said

He said the government was fully aware of its responsibilities in this regard and had been taking numerous measures to resolve the problem.

He said the project being inaugurated would be daily supplying 14.6 MGD to the residents.

He said besides this the rehabilitated water filtration plant inaugurated last month had already increased the supply by another 7 MGD. Therefore, he said, there would be in fact a total enhancement of 21.6 MGD.

The information minister said 20 new tubewells were being installed, whereas the old ones had been rehabilitated. These too would help improve the water scarcity situation in the city, he added.

“Nevertheless, I would seek more funds from the government to further improve the water and sewerage system of the city,” he said.

He said the Phase-2 of the project has been approved by the government and a team of the Asian Development Bank would be arriving here to assess it on February 11.

“We are expecting that the project would start by the end of this year,” he said.

The project management unit director Brig Habibur Rehman (retired), while presenting the salient features of the project, said Tomar-Rawalpindi conductance, for supplying water to the city from Khanpur Dam, had been completed at a cost of Rs325 million.

The 19-kilometre long pipeline has a capacity of carrying 14.6 million gallons of water per day for the city and would be benefiting the localities of Satellite Town, Khayaban, Muslim Town, Pirwadhai, Dhoke Kala Khan, Yusuf Colony, Khurram Colony, and Shamsabad.

BAN ON UNION: The information minister said he would try to get the ban on worker unions lifted.

Speaking at a meeting organized by the PML’s PTCL wing, he said, he wanted to do something for the working class that could be remembered in future. “I want to help the labourers get their rights,” he said.

He said the workers were finding themselves mired in problems, whereas the capitalists and feudal had been least affected by the difficult economic conditions.

Mr Ahmed assured the workers that there would be no down- sizing in the PTCL and the daily-wage employees would be regularized.

He said he would take up the issue with federal minister Owais Khan Leghari and adviser to the PM on economic affairs, Shaukat Aziz.

The minister advised the workers to refrain from unnecessarily quarrelling with their officers as “this leads to decrease in their working capacity”.