LAHORE, Dec 29: Punjab Housing and Public Health Engineering Minister Ali Raza Gillani on Monday urged the provincial legislators to ‘transfer’ all their development funds allocated for water supply and sewerage schemes to Wasa for their efficient utilization.

Replying to a question in the Punjab Assembly on contamination of drinking water, he said the government was negotiating with the World Bank a loan to finance a Rs12 billion project for replacing water supply lines and sewerage pipes. However, he said, “it would also be proper for the MPAs to transfer development funds for the very purpose at their disposal to Wasa for their effective spending”.

Admitting that the problem of contaminated water does exist in certain areas of the city, he said Wasa was responsible for about 350sq km area out of the city’s total 1,750sq km area.

The minister said the “problem of contamination of water was a result of old, rusting water supply pipes which the consumers did not wish to change because it involved replacement cost that they themselves had to bear”.

JUDICIAL PROBE: Minister for Law Raja Basharat assured the MPAs that the “government would take action against those found guilty of killing innocent citizens in police firing in Donga Bonga”.

In answer to a call attention notice, he said a judicial probe was under way into the incident “in which the police had allegedly shot down at least five people — three on the spot — protesting outside the Donga Bonga police station over the killing of a man by the robbers more than one-and-a-half month ago.

“The inquiry is under way and we will take action against those found guilty,” the minister said. He, however, said no compromise would be made on the question of establishing the government writ in the province. Nobody had a right to attack the police station, he said.