ISLAMABAD, Aug 24: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) is charging a fixed amount for supplying water even in case of rationing under which the residents receive water on alternate days, sources in the CDA told Dawn on Sunday.

The CDA has no mechanism to assess how much water is consumed in each house in a month, therefore, it sends a fixed bill to the people according to the size of the house.

The sources said the CDA’s annual receipts for water supply was Rs150 million and in case of rationing this target remained the same.

They said some people had lodged complaints with the CDA’s revenue directorate, demanding that the authority should charge according to whatever it supplied to the consumers.

The sources said there was nothing mentioned in the water bills regarding charging of a fixed amount in case of rationing.

The authority has been advised to install water meters in all residential and commercial units to assess water consumption so that consumers were charged accordingly.

The Capital Development Authority had planned several times to introduce water meters in the city, but this plan could not materialize due to unknown reasons.

The authority started water rationing on Friday to ensure availability of the existing reserves till next summer.

The source said rationing, under which water was supplied on alternate days, would continue for six to seven months till the catchment area of Simly Dam received adequate rains.

“We charge for minimum supply of water, therefore, there is no question of excessive billing,” the CDA’s water supply director Samiullah Jan told Dawn.

The official said the Capital Development Authority charged for per capita water supply, therefore in case of shortage, the bill remained the same.

According to the CDA’s daily water supply report, the residents of Islamabad are receiving 67MGD these days against the 111.6MGD total water supplying capacity of nine different sources in the city.

It said the CDA’s water supply directorate had recently reduced the supply in Islamabad by 13MGD. At present, 29MGD is being provided from Simly Dam against the required quantity of 42MGD.

The report said supply from Korang-I water scheme had been stopped which had a normal production capacity of 2.4MGD. Similarly, only 0.1MGD water is being supplied from Korang-II against its normal supply of 1.6MGD.

It said the daily supply from all 180 tubewells had further reduced in the federal capital. Some 21MGD water was provided from tubewells against their total production capacity of 34MGD.