TOBA TEK SINGH: The Toba Tek Singh Tehsil Municipal Administration (TMA) has failed to make functional the three water storage ponds on two acre on Akaalwala Road constructed in 2012.

The TMA had constructed the ponds with Rs6 million to meet the water shortage.

Civic watchdogs like Anjuman Shahrian and Anjuman Mufad Aaama office bearers have been pressing the TMA officials for the last four years to use the water ponds but to no avail.

Now bushes and weeds have grown in the ponds while several inches silt has filled the floor.

TMA acting executive engineer Javed Manzoor said though the scheme was approved and completed before his tenure, work was suspended on the ponds due to lack of funds as the walls and ramps were completed in 2014.

He said water was to be filled in ponds from the watercourse which carried the water from Jhang branch canal. The reason told to him by his staff was that there was a shortage of canal water due to which these ponds could not be used.

TMA Administrator Ahmad Khawar Shahzad told Dawn he had ordered an inquiry to find the responsible officials who showed negligence for turning the ponds into weeds fields.

He said he had directed the TMA staff to immediately weed out the unwanted plants from the ponds.

He claimed that there was no canal water shortage and soon the filter beds would be laid in these ponds to make them functional as a result the water supply would reach to all those localities.

Published in Dawn November 16th, 2016