SIALKOT, Aug 20: Declaring the potable water being supplied by the local municipal administration to residential and industrial consumers contaminated, the environment department has endorsed the findings by the health and public health engineering departments that were made public some months back.

Officials told journalists that the environment department collected the samples of water being supplied to the city by the TMA through its 33 tubewells and the Lahore Laboratory declared all of these samples contaminated.

They said the TMA was still supplying the contaminated and unhygienic water to the people in the city.

District Officer (Health) Dr Javed Warraich told journalists that the people had been suffering from water-borne diseases like cholera, hepatitis-A and gastroenteritis. He said entire city population was being provided with the potable water through rusty pipelines.

He suggested that the municipal authorities should install water-filtration plants in all the populous areas of the city, besides installing chlorine machines along all the 33 tubewells for purify the water.

Earlier, the PHED had declared the water of the city’s 12 out of 16 union councils contaminated and unfit for human consumption. The affected union councils are: Mianpura, Model Town, Muzaffarpura, Imam Sahib, Karimpura, Hajipura, Ghauspura, Naikapura, Muhammad Pura, Shahabpura, Roras Road, Gulshan Town, Pakka Garha, Mohallah Chah Tarkhaana and Mohallah Kashmiriyan.

A PHED official said the department had directed the TMA officials to immediately replace the water-supply pipelines. He said a 600-foot deep water boring system was also direly needed to ensure provision of potable drinking water to the city.

The TMA officials said Rs35 million were required for replacing the water-supply system.

When contacted, District Nazim Muhammad Akmal Cheema said on the directions of Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi, the PHED would soon launch a master plan to improve the water-supply system. The programme would take off in the city within the next two months.

He said special water-supply meters would also be affixed on the new water connections. The installation of the meters would help reduce misuse of potable water in the city. The city had been divided into 10 main zones for launching the project.

Mr Cheema said the provincial government would establish the hypo-chlorine and sucker machines at all the 85 drinking water-supply tubewells working under the TMA.