RAWALPINDI, May 24: The residents of cantonment area are facing water shortage as the supply from Khanpur Dam was suspended.

They expressed fear that the situation would become worse in the coming days as Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) had no effective strategy to cope with the situation.

The residents of the garrison city are bearing the brunt of water shortage and the worst affected are the civilian residents of the cantonment areas who are getting water supply from Khanpur Dam.

The Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) has managed to cope with the situation but the cantonment boards have failed to come up with a solution in this regard.

The residents of cantonment areas are forced to buy water from private tankers as the cantonment boards of Rawalpindi and Chaklala are paying no heed to provide water to them through alternative sources.

The residents of Shamsabad, Gulistan-i-Jinnah, Farooq-i-Azam Road, Dhoke Kala Khan and adjoining areas, Naseerabad, Chur Chowk, Siham, Allahabad, Westridge, Misrial Road, Tench Bhatta, Gowalmandi complained that they were facing water scarcity and repeated complaints to the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) and Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) had not yielded any results.

“The RCB should facilitate the retired and serving government officials. The water supply is already insufficient and for the last two days, we have been getting water only for an hour,” said Muhammad Fayyaz, a resident of Misrial Road.

Nasir Yaqoob, a resident of Tench Bhatta, said that they had to buy water at Rs1,000 a tanker to meet the shortage.

RCB Water Supply In-charge Attiqueur Rehman said that there was no water shortage in the cantonment areas as the civic body had provided water two days ago to the people. “We provided water to the residents after two days and after the suspension of supply from Khanpur Dam, the RCB provided water to the residents through tankers,” he said.

However, the other officials said that the RCB received more than 100 complaints from 9:00am to 1:00pm on Thursday.

They said that the RCB requested Wasa to provide water supply to cantonment areas through Rawal Dam and tanker service.

“It is not possible for Wasa to supply water from Rawal Dam to the cantonment areas because no such system is available for the purpose. The water supply from Rawal Dam is also not enough to meet the requirements of the city areas as it receives 10 million gallon daily (MGD) of water from Rawal Dam,” said Wasa Director Water Supply Akram Soban.