RAWALPINDI, Sept 8: Waste water plants will soon be established in the city for treating sewerage water and making it usable for irrigating land and parks, officials of the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) said on Monday.

A re-survey of all slaughterhouses will also be conducted and it is likely that they will be shifted to a particular locality to minimize the present environmental degradation in the city, the officials said.

They were speaking at the one-day consultative workshop organized by a private firm prior to starting work on the Asian Development Bank (ADB)’s financed Rawalpindi Environment Improvement Project (REIP), which is the second phase of the recently completed Urban Water Supply and Sanitation Project (UWSSP).

The aim of the workshop was to invite proposals and ideas from all stakeholders including citizens, councillors, NGOs and organizations working in the environment sector regarding REIP for making the project public-friendly.

The provincial minister for housing, urban development and public health engineering, Syed Raza Ali Gilani, was the chief guest on the occasion.

The RDA chairman, Raja Hamid Nawaz, director-general Brig Maqsood Hussain (retired), project director Brig Habibur Rehman (retired) along with managing director of Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) Aslam Sabzwari, project coordinator, ADB, Dr Shakeel Ahmed, secretary housing Chaudhry Riaz Ahmed and district coordinator officer Hamid Ali Khan, were present on the occasion.

Apart from the establishment of waste water treatment plants, relocation of slaughterhouses, the REIP aims at improving the function of water purification plant at Rawal Dam, ADB’s project coordinator Shakeel Ahmed said.

He said water at Rawal Dam was getting polluted due to the increase in the dumping of sewage into the water sources leading to the dam as a result of growing population in the catchment areas.

In 1993, he said the ADB had approved $72 million for solving the sewerage, environment and water-related issues of Rawalpindi. The recently completed UWSSP, he said was the first phase which would be followed by another two phases including the under-consideration REIP. He said the ADB had awarded the $0.35 million contract to the private firm for carrying out a fact- finding mission in connection with the REIP.