SIALKOT, July 23: On the directions of the Punjab chief minister, the Public Health Engineering Department will soon launch a master plan for ensuring the supply of clean drinking water to the people in Sialkot.

Punjab PHED secretary Mazhar Ali Khan announced this while addressing a meeting of union council nazims and officials of the district government here on Sunday. District Nazim Muhammad Akmal Cheema presided over the meeting.

The provincial secretary said that decades old rusted pipelines supplying contaminated water had become a major cause of fatal water borne diseases among citizens.

He said the PHED and the local health department had already declared the potable water being supplied by the Sialkot Tehsil Municipal Administration contaminated and unhygienic.

The decision, he said, had been made for laying new water supply pipelines and the drainage system with the collaboration of the Sialkot TMA. Currently, Sialkot has 35,000 registered water supply connections.

He said the multi-phased plan would be started within the next two months while meters, to reduce the misuse of water, would also fixed on all connections. For this purpose, Sialkot had been divided into 10 zones.

The PHED secretary said the provincial government would also install chlorine and sucker machines at all the 85 tubewells that would supply drinking water to citizens.

Quality of water, he said, would be monitored regularly through the maximum chemical and bacterial examinations.

He said that Rs160 million to Rs320 million would be spent on this mega project.

Mr Khan said the provincial government would soon extend this public welfare project in Punjab’s seven other main districts, including Narowal, Bahawalpur, Sargodha, Sahiwal and Jhelum.

DCO Maj Rizwanullah Baig (retired), EDO (Finance) Rana Azhar Ali, EDO (Health) Dr Javaid Umer, DO (Health) Dr Javaid Warraich, TMO Ubaidullah Rathore and UC nazims also attended the meeting. — Correspondent