09 January 2004	Friday	16 Ziqa'ad 1424

LAHORE, Jan 8: Children in more than 70 per cent of the schools under the control of the City District Government have to drink contaminated water supplied through dirty tanks.

Consequently, a number of schoolchildren are suffering from various waterborne diseases such as diarrhoea. A few such cases have been recently reported in the Shalamar Town CDG schools.

Acting on the complaints, the CDG and the Punjab Environment Protection Department had conducted a survey of the 350 CDG schools located in the Shalamar Town. Out of 25 samples, water contamination was confirmed in 22 schools.

The survey also revealed that the water tanks of the selected schools had layers of dirt, contaminating every drop of water. The CDG, however, did not survey the pipelines supplying water to these schools to check whether the contamination was only caused by the dirty water tanks or had other reasons like pipe leakage or supply of filthy water by the government tubewells.

As many as 1,600 schools in the provincial metropolis are being controlled by the CDG. According to an EPD official, "if a water survey is conducted properly in the other government schools, contamination may be reported in over 90 per cent of those."

When contacted, District Officer (environment) Tariq Zaman said the CDG had given the task of cleaning the water tanks of 350 Shalamar Town schools to the EDOs (works & service) and the TMOs.

He said the CDG was also planning to survey the schools under its control in future, as there were reports of contaminated water supply in most of those. "Handing over the CDG schools to the NGOs will certainly help improve the standard of education and supply of clean water to children," he hoped.

There are also reports of supply of contaminated water to the residents of Gulshan-i-Ravi, Shalamar, Baghbanpura, Mahmood Booti, Farooq Park, Afshan Park, Gul Bahar Colony, Harbanspura, the Walled City, Green Town, Township and Ravi Road. However, Wasa officials claimed that they had prepared numerous schemes this year to ensure supply of clean water to the residents of these areas.

"Wasa responds to every complaint about water," they claimed, but added that they were forced to ignore the areas where the water problems were not acute because of limited funds.

They said several new housing schemes developed in various parts of the city had their own water-supply systems, but Wasa was held responsible whenever a problem arose in these colonies.It is learnt that Wasa provides 80 gallon water to each consumer daily. A huge quantity of water is being wasted by watering plants, lawns and streets.

According to a study of the Water Resource Strategy, more than 25,000 people in Lahore are suffering from various diseases due to the consumption of contaminated water.