PESHAWAR, Dec 7: The NWFP government has set up a coordination committee on water and sanitation to review implementation and enforcement of legislation dealing with drinking water and sanitation.
According to a notification issued by the provincial government early this week, the seven-member committee will work under the secretary of the local government, elections and rural development. Members of the committee include chief engineer public health engineering department, director-general of the Environmental Protection Agency, one representative each from the Local Council Board, local government, Unicef, World Bank and local government departments of Fata.
The committee might co-opt any organisation or expert as its member, as and when it is deemed necessary, said the notification. According to a Unicef official, consumption of contaminated water was the main cause of diarrhoeal ailments in the NWFP.
Sixty per cent of the incidence of diseases in the province is because of the persistent use of contaminated water, said an official working on a water project. Citing a health management information system report compiled by the provincial health department, he said that while government data about water contamination was sketchy and unauthentic, rough estimates suggested that water pollution was to be blamed for most ailments in the province, he said.
According to a Unicef study carried out in the Hangu district, bacterial colonies were found in 196 springs out of a total of 200. The official said that spring water was naturally clean and fit for human consumption but human and animal contamination rendered the water unfit for drinking.
A similar study conducted in the Takhtbhai tehsil had found that 45 out of the 50 water samples contained bacteria because of which 58 per cent of the local people suffered chronic diarrhoea while 10 per cent suffered from dysentery.
The official said the total annual budget of Takhtbhai tehsil was Rs20 million, while the people’s medical bills exceeded the amount allocated for the tehsil’s annual budget. Unicef has been active in the NWFP for the past three decades and has been shifting strategies to provide clean drinking water to the people, he said.
In Takhtbhai tehsil, we started a public awareness campaign in eight hamlets to persuade the people to build latrines because 70 per cent of the households living there didn’t have this facility, he said. Subsequently, now the latrine coverage has touched the 100 per cent mark.
According to him, Unicef would replicate the strategy in Mardan and Charsadda as well where sanitation coverage stood at 18 and 16 per cent, respectively.
In the past, Unicef provided subsidy to people to ensure better water supply and sanitation facilities. Now the UN agency has shifted its focus on advocacy. We want the government to adopt durable strategies because donor-driven projects often remain ineffective, especially when they abandon such schemes," he said.
Initially, Unicef worked in close collaboration with the public health engineering department, which has now been closed. Similarly, it assisted people in the implementation of low-cost water supply schemes such as installation of hand-pumps, drilling of tube-wells and construction of latrines in rural areas.
He said that contaminated water in some villages of Swabi, Karak and Risalpur was causing dental problems among children because of the presence of natural fluoride in water, said official.
