MANSEHRA, Feb 18: The Japanese government will provide Rs3.49 billion for supply of drinking water to Mansehra city and its adjoining areas.

According to Mohammad Jamil, the head of the municipal committee’s audit department, the federal and provincial governments in collaboration with the Japanese government will execute the ‘gravity flow water supply scheme’ and that work on the project will begin soon. He told Dawn on Monday that the Japanese government had approved the project’s provisional cost and that funds were likely to be released shortly.

Mr Jamil said work on the project would begin during the current fiscal and would be competed in 2016.

He said the public health department would build the source of the ‘gravity flow water supply scheme’ at Siren River. The head of the municipal committee’s audit department said the water supply scheme could fulfill the need of drinking water for the residents of Mansehra until 2042 when its population could be doubled of the existing population.

He said the country’s almost all water research agencies had declared that water from ‘Both Katha water supply scheme’ being supplied to the city was unhygienic and spreading hepatitis-C and other hazardous diseases.

Mr Jamil said supply of clean drinking water had been denied to the residents of Mansehra for decades due to non-execution of the Azera water supply scheme. He added that the Azera water scheme was dropped due to the resistance of the local residents. According to him, two assessment companies based in Lahore and Peshawar carried out the feasibility of the project.

“The source tank will be built at Siren River in Domal area and a 49km pipeline will be laid up to Mansehra city for water supply from its main source,” he said.