RAWALPINDI, March 28 Only 35 per cent of the city is covered by sewerage lines and the poor wastewater system has become a major source of health hazards, reveals an official report obtained by Dawn.

This situation exists when Rawalpindi is the only city in Punjab where no pumping is needed to run sewerage system, notes the Economic Report 2007-08 of the Punjab government.

It blames the appalling situation on poor planning. Instead of planning to meet the long-term needs of the rapidly growing cities, the planners contended themselves with offering piecemeal solutions.

Rawalpindi's population has risen to 2.5 million in the past two decades but the city had no sewage treatment plant.

Only now the City District Government plans to build such a plant under a Rawalpindi Environment Improvement Project (REIP) being funded by the Asian Development Bank.

Since the sewerage capacity is inadequate, sewage is found overflowing in many areas of the city, contaminating near surface groundwater, the report says.

An Urban Water Supply and Sewerage Strategy, prepared by the Punjab government with World Bank's support, notes that standards don't exist for quality of service.

The informal standards vary from city to city. In any case the quality is generally of a poor standard as compared to international levels.

Particularly the reliability of service is poor, making it inefficient and non-sustainable. Water supply is not constant and its quality is ambiguous as periodic sampling and analysis is not done.

Based on the intermittent supply and poor condition of the distribution network, the strategy assumes the water reaches the users contaminated.

Solid waste management is another problem in urban areas of Punjab.

A solid waste management study, conducted recently, found that lack of resources was not the only factor behind the problem but lack of a comprehensive waste management system was also wanted.

It is common knowledge that a large part of the waste collected in big cities does not reach dumping sites.

Even then dumping the waste in open lands and water channels contaminates underground water.

Most dumping sites do not meet environmental standards. Improving solid waste services requires investing in machinery, vehicles and transfer stations. It also requires better handling of hazardous and special waste, the report says.

Industries situated in urban areas often discharge toxic effluent into surface water.

This water mixes with sewage in urban areas, and becomes unfit for agricultural or domestic use.

In view of the serious nature of this problem, the report calls for evolving an appropriate policy framework for toxic effluent discharge.

The report recommended that Wasa and Tehsil Municipal Administrations in Punjab should be strengthened with trained staff having knowledge about the technical aspects of water purification, as well as policies on water cost recovery.

There is also need to properly demarcate the mandate of governing bodies in the water and sanitation sectors at the federal, provincial, WASA, and TMA level to ensure that there is no overlapping of jurisdiction and that efforts are coordinated to supply good-quality water.