HYDERABAD, June 13: District Nazim Kanwar Naveed Jamil has directed the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) to ensure carrying out chemical analysis every two hours before releasing water into pipelines.

During a surprise visit to a newly-built filter plant and Latifabad Unit No4 water works on Monday, he warned that he would not tolerate inefficiency in supplying clean drinking water to people.

The nazim stressed the need for improving the performance of water testing laboratory at the new plant and directed the appointment of necessary technical staff at the laboratory.

He directed the managing director of Wasa to ensure that the water lagoons remained filled to their full capacity to avoid interruption in supply during emergencies.

Mr Naveed advised to pass the water through activated carbon process to eliminate any colour or odour and organic matters which posed danger to human health.

A water technologist of the Centre of Excellence in Analytical Chemistry, Jamshoro, Dr Ahsan Siddiqui and Wasa Managing Director Syed Sohail Yazdani were present on the occasion.

Meanwhile, the nazim of the union council, Tando Hyder, Hyderabad (rural) taluka, Shaikh Mian Abdullah, lashed out at the nazim of Union Council-2, Qasimabad taluka, for criticising the district nazim.

In a statement issued here on Tuesday, he said that development works were being carried out in all the four talukas of the district including Qasimabad and Hyderabad (rural) talukas without any discrimination and strictly in accordance with the rules and regulations.

He advised the nazim of UC-2 Qasimabad not to resort to third degree methods to save his reputation and avoid criticism for the sake of criticism.

DEMO: A large number of people, including women and farmers, staged a protest demonstration outside the press club against the WTO regime and said that the rich countries were cheating the developing countries.

The demonstration was held under the aegis of Green Rural Development Organisation.

Speaking to protesters, Dr Ghulam Haider said that if Pakistan were to follow WTO conditionalities, it would destroy the farming community and add to poverty.

He said that the rich countries were not prepared to give up subsidy to their agriculture sector leaving the developing countries with no other option but to face their excesses.