ISLAMABAD: Fairly large quantities of water under artesian pressure in the Uzhda Psha sandstone of the late Tertiary age, near Kach, about 40 miles east of Quetta have been discovered recently by the Geological Survey of Pakistan, it was officially stated.

This sandstone covers an area of several thousand square miles and the artesian basin covers an area of 60 square miles, and is estimated to have an exploitable storage of 62,400 million gallons or 256,000 acre ft. of water and an estimated annual recharge of 768 acre feet or 200 million gallons. With adequate artificial recharge techniques the present recharge may be doubled. It is estimated that without resorting to “mining”, this source may provide up to 10 lakh gallons of water a day to Quetta, at a cost which is likely to be much less than the proposed Mangi dam.

This discovery of water in Uzhda Psha sandstone is of great significance, as it proves and highlights the possibility of finding water from hard rocks at ‘geologically suited places in various impoverished areas of West Pakistan’ and opens up a completely new field of ground water development.

Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2018