RAWALPINDI: The Punjab government has approved two Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) projects regarding water supply lines worth Rs700 million in 61 union councils (UC) in the garrison city.

The provincial government will release Rs500 million to the agency for replacing old water supply lines and Rs200 million for laying down new ones. Work on both the projects will start after the local government elections, scheduled for December 5, are held.

Wasa Managing Director Raja Shaukat Mehmood told Dawn the civic agency will replace 150 kilometres of water lines. He said work in the densely populated downtown areas will start in January, so it can be completed before summer.

During the project, the managing director said Wasa will compile computerised data on the supply lines after which it will be able to detect faults and leaks in them in minutes, instead of digging around to find them.

In the smaller project worth Rs200 million, Wasa will lay down new water supply lines in downtown Rawalpindi and areas bordering Islamabad, including Kuri Road, Shamsabad, and areas near Pirwadhai and in 15 UCs of Potohar Town.

Mr Mehmood said Potohar Town was given under Wasa’s jurisdiction last year and that the civic agency was working on improving its obsolete system.

Mr Mehmood said the Punjab Planning and Development Department had approved the project and that funds for it will be released to the civic agency after the local government elections and that work on the project will begin soon after.

A senior Wasa official told Dawn that the current water supply lines had been installed in the city in the early 1970’s and that they needed to be replaced. He said that in 2008, the Rawalpindi Environmental Improvement Project had started work on replacing the old lines, but the project had been closed.

The official said funds for replacing the supply lines had been left unattended, adding that: “Instead of replacing water lines in the whole city, just those in Satellite Town and a few other areas were changed”.

He explained that because complaints of contaminated water had increased, Wasa had decided to change all the pipes in the city.

Published in Dawn, November 30th, 2015