LAHORE, Feb 17: Punjab local government secretary Akhlaq Tarrar has said that a $4 to 5 billion plan is on the anvil for provision of safe drinking water to the people.

Inaugurating a one-day seminar on `Safe drinking water and hygiene promotion’ organised by the USAID in collaboration with the local government and rural development department here on Saturday morning, he said the government had started installation of 1,000 filtration plants in the province for the provision of clean drinking water. Installation of 144 plants had been completed so far. Plants would be installed at the union council level at the initial stage and at village level later on.

He said the federal ministry of industries had not associated the rural development department for the implementation of the plan in the beginning. The department had, however, been associated and it had been decided to take the plan down the town municipal administration level with the involvement of all the stakeholders.

Filtration plants installed under the project would be handed over to Wasa and tehil/town municipal administration for maintenance and operation. The contractor would not be free to install the plants and disappear.

Punjab local government director (training and evaluation) Iftikhar Ali Toor said safe and clean drinking water was the first line of defence in protecting public health and lives of the people. A survey report of the Bureau of Statistics had revealed that 60 per cent population of Pakistan had no access to clean drinking water and more than 40 per cent beds were occupied by the patients of water-borne diseases. Approximately 26.5 per cent children in Punjab fell sick due to use of contaminated water every year.

He said analysis of water samples from different parts of Punjab had indicated arsenic presence up to 750 particles per billion (ppb) against the maximum safe limit of up to 50 ppb. Analysis of water samples from all the nine towns of Lahore had also shown presence of much higher than safe number of arsenic particles. Arsenic contamination was like slow poisoning but could not be detected without scientific tests because it did not affect the colour or taste of water.

He said 144 tehsils and town had been selected for the installation of filtration plants and cost estimates of Rs4,574.406 million approved under the first phase of clean drinking water for all project launched under the directives of the president and the prime minister.

The first two plants under the project had been installed at Racecourse Park in Lahore and Bhalwal district TMA in Sargodha. Hundred per cent population would be served by providing 3,464 filtration plants down to the union council and villages having a population up to 1,000 or where water quality was highly contaminated.

The TMAs would be responsible for provision of water supply connection and maintenance of the plants.

Project facilitator Zulfiqar Ali Toor said 85 per cent ground water samples collected from 14 districts of Punjab were found unfit for human consumption. Of 48 samples of branded bottled water, 15 were found unfit for consumption.

Sigurd Hansen said implementation of the Pakistan safe drinking water and hygiene promotion project would start from April this year and completed in March 2009. The USAID would provide $6 million in the form of technical assistance and grants for the implementation of the project.

He said the project would be started in selected districts of all the four provinces, Fata and Azad Kashmir. It would be started in Lahore, Rawalpindi, Jhelum, Khanewal, Dera Ghazi Khan, Khushab, Gujrat and Okara in Punjab, Upper Dir, Bunner, Swat, Batagram, Shangla, Mansehra and Kohistan in the NWFP, Sukkur, Dadu, Larkana, Khairpur, Thatta and Jamshoro in Sindh, Jafferabad, Lasbela, Zhob, Turbat and Kech in Balochistan, Bajaur, Mehmand and Kurram in Fata and Bagh, Neelam, Muzaffarabad and Poonch-Rawalakot in Azad Kashmir.

Initially the implementation had been started in Rawalpindi and Lahore in Punjab , Shangala, Mansehra and Batagram in NWFP, Dadu in Sind, Lasbela in Balochistan, Kurram in Fata and Muzaffarabad in Azad Kashmir.

Provincial project manager Engineer Mukhtar Arshad said the ministry of industries would revise the umbrella cost estimates of the projects in view of transfer of implementation to the provincial governments in a meeting to be held in Lahore on March 3.

Federal Industries Minister Jehangir Khan Tareen will preside over the meeting.