RAWALPINDI: A water shortage was reported in most Chaklala Cantonment Board (CCB) areas on Wednesday after supply from Khanpur Dam was halted.

CCB residents demanded that the government resolve the water supply problem in the cantonment areas, as they paid their taxes but were not getting anything in return.

Tariqabad resident Mohammad Ajmal said water bills were paid to the CCB regularly, but the civic authority was not supplying residents with water.

“We are getting water twice a week and the remaining days, we hire the services of private water tankers,” he said.

Gulistan Colony resident Raja Maqbool said people were moving house because of the water shortage. He said hiring a private water tanker was an additional burden on the average citizen’s monthly budget.

CCB Vice President Raja Irfan Imtiaz told Dawn the supply of water from Khanpur Dam to the CCB areas was stopped, forcing the CCB to supply water using water tankers.

He said the CCB was receiving water from Khanpur Dam through the Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB), and the latter had claimed that the water supply was halted. He said the CCB’s actual share of water was eight million gallons daily (mgd) but it was receiving 2mgd.

He said underground water in the CCB areas is also depleting, and many tubewells have dried up in the last two years, leaving the authority with no choice but to rely on dam water to supply to residents.

Mr Imtiaz said more than a hundred complaints had been received from various parts of the cantonment, and the CCB had tried to handle them by providing water tankers.

He said supplying water using tankers was an additional burden on the CCB, as it has to spend millions of rupees on fuel.

RCB spokesperson Qaisar Mehmood said the water supply from Khanpur Dam for the CCB was not stopped, but was halted due to a low pressure issue.

He said the RCB and CCB were working to improve the situation, adding that the CCB was receiving its share of water as per the agreement between the two bodies.

Published in Dawn, July 20th, 2017