Residents of the twin cities have been faced with a shortage of water the last two decades of which successive governments have not taken serious notice.

Many proposals were made during the years for overcoming the water crisis including the construction of small dams, storing water in reservoirs and encouraging residents to start using rain water, but none of these proposals were implemented.

A resident of I-10, Maqbool Ahmed told Dawn that he has been facing the water shortage since the 1990s and that it seems to be getting worse by the day.

“We do not get water at all now. I have registered complaints with the Capital Development Authority (CDA) many times but they did not do anything. I have come to know the drivers of CDA’s water tankers who now bring me water for seven times the official CDA rate which is Rs100,” he said.

Mr Ahmed said that even this arrangement does not work when the management changes and that the drivers then tell him that it will take a few days to come back to the routine.

Maqbool Ahmed fills water from the filtration plant in the I-10 Markaz then. He said the soil in his area was also not suitable for boring.

“I am hoping the new government will do something about the water crisis,” he said.

Many projects have been floated for addressing the water crisis in the twin cities. The CDA has time and again announced it will construct the Chirah Dam, the project for which was approved in 2009 and is a joint venture of the Punjab government and the CDA.

Construction of the dam was approved by the executive committee of the National Economic Council with an estimated cost of Rs5.3 billion and was to be completed by 2013, according to its PC-1. However, there has been no development on it so far.

Similarly, over a decade ago, the Daducha Dam project was prepared in order to provide Rawalpindi city with 25 million gallons per day of water.

In 2006, a housing society purchased 18,000 kanals on the site where the dam was to be built and launched a housing scheme.

On Aug 4, 2015 the Supreme Court in a suo motu case directed the Punjab government to construct the dam at its originally proposed site. Soon after these directions were made, the government banned the sale and purchase of land in the area and allocated funds for the construction of the dam in its annual development plan for 2017-18. The dam could not be constructed to date.

In 2016, Senate passed a resolution regarding the construction of a new water reservoir in the federal capital. The motion was moved by Muttahida Qaumi Movement Senator Mian Mohammad Ateeq Sheikh. He said there was a need for such a reservoir in the Margalla Hills under a rainwater harvesting program in order to meet the water needs of the city.

Talking to Dawn, Mr Sheikh said rainwater is stored the world over and that it can be done in the Margalla Hills of Islamabad as well.

“The establishment of these reservoirs will lead to an increase in underground water as well. There is need for policies for water conservation as we are one of the countries which lets 40pc of its water flow into the sea. We need to make it a policy that every house has to have a tank for storing rain water, which can be used for washing, cleaning and watering plants,” he said.

Stream water is used for drinking in most areas of the country even though it has sewage mixed in it, he added.

“Rainwater is the purest water and can be used for drinking. My motion was passed unanimously by Senate but was not implemented. Now, I have started working on the resolutions passed in the past and I will take up the issues due to which they were not implemented,” he said.

Shahida Kausar Farooq, chairperson Subh-i-Nau, an environment and public health concern, told Dawn that the decision to construct the Bhasha Dam was good for future generations, it will take at least five or 10 years to make and that there is need for taking immediate steps and conserve water in the meantime.

“I suggest that rainwater harvesting should be made mandatory in all government and private buildings which can at least reduce our domestic water use. This is a one-time expense and we can save millions of gallons of water by installing this system,” she said.

“As many as Rs75 billion have been allocated in the Public Sector Development Program for bringing water from Tarbela Dam through a pipeline. I think the water scarcity issue can be addressed when this project is completed,” said Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad Chief Metropolitan Officer Syed Najaf Abbas.

In 2007, the CDA had decided to bring water from Tarbela Dam and funding was also arranged, but the federal government had in 2009 scrapped the Ghazi Barotha project due to the reservations of some provinces which said their share of water from the Indus River will be consumed by Islamabad. Consensus was reached over the project later.

Published in Dawn, September 23rd, 2018