CHINIOT: More than 50 per cent of the Punjab population has no access to potable water though billions of rupees have been misappropriated on safe drinking water schemes in the past without any accountability.

Governor Chaudhry Sarwar said this at a ceremony of inauguration of a filtration plant at the Government Girls’ High School, Satellite Town, on Friday.

He said when he took over as governor, the water from the filtration plant of the Governor’s House was also unfit for consumption.

He said he planned the provision of safe drinking water to pople of Punjab under which safe water would be provided to 100,000 students across Punjab in the first phase.

He thanked the Sheikh clan of Chiniot for donating three filteration plants for schools.

He said the Punjab government had also allocated Rs12 billion for a safe drinking water scheme.

Mian Saleem Omer, president of the Sheikh clan which runs the Chiniot Educational Scholarship Society, said they were working for the provisoi of missing facilities in the public schools.

FAISALABAD: The governor also visited the Hilal-i-Ahmer hospital and inaugurated a medical laboratory at the University of Faisalabad on Friday. He said the influx of patients was increasing in hospitals as people had been

consuming polluted water. He said due to load of patients the government had to spend extra amounts on the health department. With the help of philanthropists, he said he had arranged 150 clean drinking water plants in the Punjab.

Published in Dawn, November 29th , 2014