RAWALPINDI: For the first time, the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) achieved its target to collect revenue from consumers and recovered Rs2.2 billion in the first two quarters of the ongoing fiscal year 2024-25.

Wasa Managing Director Mohammad Saleem Ashraf said that the agency aimed to recover Rs2.371 billion in the current fiscal year, and so far it has recovered Rs2.256 billion.

“In the last fiscal year 2023-24, a total target of Rs1.570 billion was fixed and Rs1.717 billion was recovered. However, in 2024-25, Rs2.371 billion target was fixed and Rs2.256 billion was recovered in six months, which is an achievement,” he said.

“There are total 134,681 consumers in the garrison city and (only) 96,971 are paying their bills, and the recovery teams had been asked to bring all consumers in the paying category,” he said.

MD says defaulters will not be provided relief after May 31

He expressed hope that the agency would recover revenue from all consumers regularly.

“In 2024, 2,565 water connections were disconnected, 355 illegal water pumping machines were removed from the supply lines, and 473 cases of water thefts were detected,” he said, adding that 57,400 consumers were issued notices to clear their pending dues.

Mr Ashraf said that 546 under-construction buildings were found using water without getting certificates from Wasa, which is mandatory under the law. He said due to their efficient legal team, all cases had been resolved and stay orders were also vacated.

The official said this had also improved the recovery from commercial plazas, hotels, and car service stations.Since Wasa is a self-sufficient organisation, it will use the income generated through bills to improve the water supply infrastructure in the garrison city, he added.

Sharing details about the recovery efforts, he said the agency had formed special revenue recovery teams to recover money from habitual defaulters without any discrimination.

He said that the revenue director and deputy directors had been asked to immediately disconnect the connections of water and sewerage of the defaulters.

He said the defaulters were being given the last chance to clear their dues by May 31 after which the civic agency would not waive off late fees surcharges.

Apart from this, he said that Wasa has also sped up its development works in the city areas to ensure the supply of water. He said that the government launched the project to bring water from Chahan Dam and in this regard, a quota of 12 million gallons of daily water (MGD) was allocated for the garrison city.

He said the Punjab government had planned to provide 6 MGD for Rawalpindi city, but later, it decided to enhance it to 12 MGD.

He said that the government would launch another project to improve water supply in the garrison city. Under this project, the capacity of the water filtration plant in Rawal Dam would be enhanced from 23 MGD water to 28 MGD water. He said that a new water supply line would be laid from Rawal Dam to the garrison city and it would supply 5 MGD water to Adiala Road, Chakri Road, and adjoining areas.

Published in Dawn, January 29th, 2025