LAHORE, June 8: A government agency’s report reveals that Faisalabad and Lahore authorities concerned had been warned of any eventuality owing to supply of contaminated water in the two cities but the warning was casually ignored.

In Ghulam Muhammadabad, a congested locality of Faisalabad, more than 10 people died due to gastroenteritis two weeks ago reportedly after consuming polluted water, while in Ravi Road, Lahore, six deaths had occurred in 2005 because of similar reasons.

The Punjab Environment Protection Agency had collected 20 samples each from 14 districts of the province in 2002, out of which 17 from Lahore and 16 from Faisalabad were found unfit for human consumption.

Both Ravi Road and Gulam Muhammadabad were included among the areas from where the samples were collected.

A report was compiled in April 2003 and sent to the district authorities asking them to take corrective measures to avoid spread of any epidemic resulting in human misery in their respective areas due to supply of contaminated water.

Presentations were given to district nazims, district coordination officers and tehsil municipal officers informing them that the subsoil water, industrial waste and old rusty water-supply pipes were causing contamination of water and immediate steps should be taken to improve the situation, sources said.

Provincial environment minister Makhdoom Ashfaq Ahmad, as head of a task force set up to tackle environmental problems in Punjab, convened a meeting of the forum and told the participants to increase budget for water-supply schemes by 40 per cent.

Secretaries of health, local government, housing, industries, irrigation, agriculture and environment departments as well as representatives of the Punjab University, UET, PCSIR, Faisalabad Agriculture University and Institute of Public Health Engineering are members of the task force.

The sources said the relevant authorities were repeatedly sent reminders during the last three years, while budgetary allocation for the public health engineering was increased five times but no corrective measures were taken in the focal areas.

The authorities even declined to publicise the water analysis results (so that people could take precautionary steps on their own) “for fear of causing scare among the masses”, they said.

The sources said that the situation was more critical in Sheikhupura, Kasur, Sahiwal, Sargodha, Jhang, and Dera Ghazi Khan districts as the all 20 water samples taken from Sheikhupura and 19 each from the other mentioned districts were found unfit for human consumption.

In Bahawalpur, 17 samples were found unfit, in Multan and Rawalpindi 16 each, in Gujranwala and Gujrat 15 each and in Sialkot 12 samples were found contaminated in the chemical analysis.