BADIN, May 24: The district will have 79 new filter plants and each union council of the district will have at least one filter plant for providing potable water to the people of the area.On the directives of National Assembly Speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza a three-member team led by engineer Mohammad Khan Mari, Director Incharge, Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources, Ministry of Science and Technology, arrived here on Saturday and held a meeting with the local officials.

The meeting was also attended by former district nazim Kamal Khan Chang, Mirza Sohail Akbar, Abdul Karim Channa and others.

The meeting was informed that the national assembly speaker was taking keen interest in providing pure drinking water to the people living in rural areas to save them from waterborne diseases.

The meeting was informed that feasibility of selected 79 sites had been carried out for setting up filter plants.

It said that nine filter plants – three in each union council of Badin town, would be set up to meet the demands of 200,000 population of the town.

Later, while talking to Dawn, Mohammad Khan Mari said that 30 per cent filtration will be done through reverse osmosis system while 70 per cent will be done through filter plants and added that these schemes would be carried out by the ministry of industries.

The director incharge said that a water testing laboratory was being established in Badin within one month at a cost of Rs6 million for which the building had been obtained.

He said that a survey was under way to find out whether rural water supply schemes were working according to the requirement of the population or not.—Correspondent