| August 22, 2006 | Tuesday | Rajab 26, 1427 |
Alternative to Pak Tea House
THE photograph in an English daily last week of people in the capital city scrambling to get their daily supply of water by filling plastic containers from a public tap is a sorry sight.
AFTER the unceremonious closure of the Lahore-based writers’ rendezvous, the Pak Tea House, the question emerged in Ghalib’s way:
Surprisingly, after so much rain, there is still no water from the taps in many homes in Islamabad.
The photograph was of a public tap station in I-10 sector, officially known by the sophisticated sounding term, “public drinking water filtration plant”. There are six to eight taps in each such public tap station or filtration plant.
The scene at another filtration plant in G-9 sector is the same, with nearby residents coming in cars daily to get their containers filled.
The Capital Development Authority had installed 12 of these drinking water filtration plants in Islamabad between June and August 2005. There are four of them in F-sector, six in G-sector, and two in I-sector.
These public filtration plants are part of an ambitious government project to provide clean drinking water to all by 2007. The project involves the installation of some 6,000 of these water filtration plants in union councils all over the country.
A noble objective no doubt, but it is a shame that people in a supposedly modern capital city should be getting their water supply, not direct from their taps in their own homes, but in a manner reminiscent of how people in villages get their water supply.
Queuing up at a public tap with containers in hand to get water for the day is not only inconvenient and frustrating, but an unnecessarily time-wasting exercise for busy urbanites.
But water from a public tap is better than no water at all, one may say. Not necessarily so, for there have been complaints by some residents about a thick black layer remaining in the containers after the water has been used.
Sara, an M.Sc. student, thought at first that it was because she had forgotten to wash the container before filling it with water from the filtration plant. The next time, she made sure she washed the container thoroughly first. But then, the thick black layer of what looked like dirt was there again at the bottom of the container after the water was used up.
Take a closer look at the condition of one of the public filtration plants and you will not be surprised that the water provided is far from the quality of water in a mineral water bottle, Sara says.
The taps are so close to the blackened, fungus-lined tiled wall of the filtration plant that it is difficult to fill any container without it touching the dirty wall. The drain directly below the taps is also all blackened with fungus/dirt and the iron caging covering the drain is rusty and blackened too.
Not surprisingly, a report by the Network for Consumer Protection in Islamabad in April 2006, quoting laboratory tests on water from 10 of the filtration plants in the Capital conducted by the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources, said water in four plants had tested positive for bacterial contamination and was unsafe for human consumption.
Imran, a 30-year-old employee in a foreign mobile telephone company who has had to cope with a very erratic water supply in his home in G-sector for the past two months, has had to depend on the unreliable water tanker service, and whenever this service failed to deliver — which was quite often — he has had to queue up for water at the filtration plant.
“Why do we have to pay taxes when we are not getting proper water and electricity supply, decent roads, medical care and security?” he cries. One can hardly blame Imran for being bitter.
Access to water is not the only basic problem he faces. Electricity supply to his home has been fluctuating a great deal recently, so much so that this has damaged his television set and refrigerator. Even the cable service in his sector is third class, he laments, as it is very often out of order, even when there is electricity.
If this is the state of civic services in parts of the capital, one can imagine the state of affairs in the rest of the country.
It is a shame that 59 years on after independence, we are still struggling with building up sustainable systems, whether it be water or electricity supply system, sewerage system, urban transport system, medical care system, educational system, or a democratic political system.
Imran prays that the drinking water filtration plants will only be a temporary phenomenon, not only in Islamabad but throughout the country. It does not take a water expert to realize that these public tap stations can only be an unsatisfactory stopgap measure in ensuring clean drinking water for all.
Water experts had already cautioned, at a seminar organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute last month, that these 6,000 water filtration plants were not the real solution to the problem of access to clean drinking water because they required costly maintenance and repair.
As the report by the Network for Consumer Protection (NCP) in April had revealed, the newly-installed drinking water filtration plants in neighbouring Rawalpindi are in a very poor condition generally, much worse than those in Islamabad. While bacterial contamination is common, at least one filtration plant is completely non-functional as all the taps are missing/stolen.
The NCP report suggested that to ensure proper, long term functioning of these filtration plants, citizen committees should be formed to monitor these plants and ensure that the relevant authorities follow due maintenance and operating rules. (Where are our local governments?)
Even then, no matter how effective these filtration plants may be in providing the populace with clean drinking water, public taps are still public taps, no matter what fanciful names they are being given.
They are no alternative at all to a system that provides clean drinking water direct to the taps of each and every household in the country.
Access to clean drinking water in our taps at home is not only a basic need but a basic human right, the provision of which is characteristic of any modern society and is representative of the quality of life of the citizens.
Instead of “clean drinking water for all”, the slogan ought to be “clean drinking water from all taps”.
(Whose house will the waves sweep after mine?)
No cultural agency of the provincial or federal government came forward to help preserve the only remaining meeting place for writers, which was established much before independence. The Chaupal, a small hut at Nasir Bagh has become the meeting place for small groups but it is in shabby conditions and cannot accommodate more than 30 people at a time. It was a former commissioner of Lahore who was kind enough to give this place for literary activities with the promise that the hut will be extended according to the needs. But nothing was done after that.
There was another important building which could have been used for the purpose, and that was the dilapidated Prince Hotel or the office of the Pakistan Writers’ Guild, which has been made controversial by the Karachi chapter of the guild. They have created many hurdles in implementing the plan of a multi-storey building. But the place could still be used for the purpose with some help from the government. Another building is coming up at the Qadhafi Stadium for the Punjab Institute of Language, Arts and Culture, which hopefully will be completed in the next six months. This new building can fulfill the requirements.
Meanwhile the managers of the Alhamra Centre on The Mall have also offered their premises for literary and intellectual activities and in that connection a preliminary gathering of the writers was arranged and addressed by the Punjab governor. They have offered the Halqa-i-Arbab-i-Zauq to hold its weekly meetings at the centre where a separate canteen will also be functioning. But the real need was that the Pak Tea House, the original, historical venue should have been preserved in an appropriate manner.
THE current year seems cruel in the sense that it has deprived us of one of the stalwarts of Urdu literature and a sympathizer with the cause of Punjabi, i.e. Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi. But Punjabi has also had to bear some other losses. Last year Amrita Pritam said goodbye and this year Surrender Kaur, the great folk singer died in the US. Surrender Kaur’s journey, according a write-up by Qaiser Nazeer Khawar in monthly Awami Jamhoori Forum, started from Daska in Sialkot district. She managed as a polished singer from Lahore. Partition pushed her out of Punjab and she had to take refuge near Delhi. She had become a prime singer at the Lahore station of All-India Radio where her first song was recorded in 1943. This is the only radio station which had produced epoch-making artists, writers, poets and intellectuals. Khawar has a point to grudge that the Website of Lahore radio is devoid of the names of Surrender Kaur and her elder sister Parkash Kaur.
Surrender after her marriage shifted to Bombay where she also recorded film songs in Urdu and one of her songs, Badnam nah ho jaey muhabat ka fasana was a great success. But she was made for the Punjabi folk tradition and in spite of the immense popularity in Bombay and Delhi, she always yearned to return to Punjab. She time and again tried to acquire a plot in a Punjab city but time deceived her every time. And not only could she not earn a house in the land of five rivers, she also could not get a place for her Smadhi in Punjab, either here or in India.
In early 1960s, Majlis Shah Husain was founded in Lahore and this organization aspired to invite three women from India who could have played a substantive role in promoting the cause of Punjabi in west Punjab. They were Amrita Pritam, Surrender Kaur and Sheela Bhatia, the last with her ballet team. But the Majlis received a message from Altaf Gauhar, the then information secretary of General Ayub Khan, through the Punjab information secretary, the late Masudul Rauf that the Majlis should not invite troubles for itself. The relations between the two countries were not cordial, therefore the ladies could not visit Pakistan. After the death of her husband, Surrender sang the following lines:
(Spirit fled with the sweetheart, leaving us to carry the corpse).
Dr Agha Yameen, the former head of the Persian department at Government College, Lahore was one of the Punjabi activists and he had the great credit of helping the publication of the biography of Shah Husain namely, Haqiqtul Fuqra in Persian verse, written by a disciple of Madho Lal Husain. It was a rare manuscript which was lost in the heap of precious rare manuscripts at the Punjab University library. Agha Yameen was a gentleman and an enthusiastic worker. In his last days he was associated with the Tehrik-i-Karkunan-i-Pakistan but he never missed any Punjabi function held in the city. And one day he silently embarked on his eternal journey.
SAJJAD Bukhari was not only a prominent lawyer at his ancestral city of Jhang but also a devoted worker for the cause of Punjabi. He has contributed at least four collections of poetry to literature. Both Dr Mohsin Maghiana and Sajjad Bukhari have separately done a great service to Punjabi; they never hesitated from attending Punjabi functions wherever they might be arranged. They used to give more weightage to attending a literary activity than to their professional engagements. Sajjad was no doubt a busy lawyer but for him first priority was Punjabi literary activities. Jhang has been deprived of a good soul and Punjabi has lost a devoted creative writer.