LAHORE, April 14: At least 14 district governments have so far done nothing to supply clean drinking water to people despite detection of heavy metals in sub-soil water by the Punjab Environment Protection Department a year ago.

The EPD had found over 64 per cent water samples collected from Lahore, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Gujrat, Faisalabad, Jhang, Sargodha, Rawalpindi, Sheikhupura, Kasur, Sahiwal, Multan, Bahawalpur and DG Khan contaminated.

It had suggested that all tehsil municipal administrations (TMAs) should prepare an action plan for an effective drainage and clean water supply at municipal and tehsil levels. Besides, it had also proposed to develop their own standards to measure air and water pollution instead of adopting WHO's standards.

The EPD had provided the survey to district governments asking them to direct water supply agencies to supply clean water to the residents of these districts. But all of them turned a deaf ear to its recommendations.

EPD director (laboratory) Dr Shagufta Shajahan told Dawn on Tuesday that the public health department had launched a programme to supply clean water in these districts. However, she added, it had managed to supply water to 50 per cent population in Lahore.

Dr Shahjahan said the priority was being given to those areas where people used hand pumps to get water. She said the EPD had also been surveying sub-soil water in the remaining 20 districts.

The EPD had collected 280 sub-soil water samples in these districts. Of them, 180 indicated that quality of water was not safe for human consumption in accordance with the World Health Organization guidelines.

The contamination of water was of different kinds which included some 20 per cent brackish, 10 per cent fluoride, 13 per cent foul smell and one per cent arsenic. It is pertinent to mention that a number of bone deformity cases surfaced in Manga Mandi district Lahore about three years ago were due to fluoride mixed water.

Fluoride was found in water samples collected from Lahore, Kasur, Sahiwal, Sargodha, Sheikhupura and Sialkot districts. The survey had pointed out that the defective sewerage system was one of the main reasons for water contamination.

The EPD official said the discharge of industrial effluents into subsoil through boring should be banned to avoid ground water contamination. She said in the rural areas the practice of raw sewage irrigation was not only harmful for human health but also caused contamination of shallow aquifer.