RAWALPINDI, Feb 8: The Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) is in a fix over its extended jurisdiction, as the agency is yet to come out of a maze of problems being faced by the areas already falling in its jurisdiction, official sources told Dawn on Sunday.

The sources said the agency was not in a position to accept the charge of more than 60 high-density areas located on the outskirts of the city because about 70 per cent of the areas falling under its control lacked planned sewerage and drainage systems. Majority of the poor and middle-class people dwell in these areas, they added.

About 23 such areas are located in the west of Nikki Nullah near Pirwadhai. Moreover, the sewerage system in Satellite Town, Muslim Town, Afandi Colony and Sadiqabad is unable to sustain the pressure of the ever-increasing population.

Similarly, most of the agency's one million consumers are still getting contaminated water despite the fact that a big chunk of the more than Rs4 billion spent on the recently completed Asian Development Bank-funded Urban Water Supply and Sanitation Project (Wasa) was consumed in the laying of pipeline networks, construction of overhead reservoirs and digging of new tubewells in the city.

Moreover, the agency is yet to remove the numerous leakages in its pipelines laid under the UWSSP, the sources said. They also said the water table in the city had lowered considerably over the last two decades, while, Wasa still faced water shortage of more than 8 million gallons per day.