RAWALPINDI, Feb 6: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has decided to test water quality in the city in a bid to ascertain the credibility of findings of the tests recently conducted by the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa), Dawn has reliably learnt.
The sources said the Bank had made the unexpected move after a controversy arose between the Authority and its consumers and various NGOs about the quality of water supplied to the people. Besides, the Bank had also noticed mounting complaints about the leakages in the water pipelines recently laid under the ADB- funded Rs4 billion Urban Water Supply and Sanitation Project (UWSSP), owing to which sewerage seeped into the pipelines.
"The bank has asked the Nespak (a state-run engineering and consultative organisation) to test the water of various tubewells, storage tanks and supply networks," the sources said. Nespak, they added, had already taken samples from 15 tubewells located near Nullah Leh and water tanks and networks in various parts of the city last month.
The samples had been sent to the Pakistan Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR) for analysis and the findings were likely to be received this month. The findings would be dispatched to Wasa, ADB and the departments concerned of Punjab government, the sources said.
Nespak, they added, was busy in its technical survey prior to the initiation of the ADB-funded Rawalpindi Environmental Improvement Project (REIP). The deadline for the survey was January 15. However, the ADB included some new tasks in the survey, including the testing of water quality in the city, and extended the deadline by another one and a half month.
Wasa, the sources said, in a recent statement had claimed that it was providing pure water to its more than 8 million consumers.
The agency had also cited the findings of various tests it had conducted on the water samples taken from its tubewells located in various parts of the city, particularly those sunk near Nullah Leh.
The findings of the tests, which the officials claimed they had conducted at the Rawal Lake Treatment Plant laboratory, termed the water of these tubewells and various storage tanks fit for human consumption.
The agency had held leakages in the water supply network responsible for the contamination of water in few localities and heaped all the blame for contamination of water on the consumers announcing that most of the people had not cleaned their tanks for years.
The Authority had released the findings of its tests in the backdrop of severe criticism from the councillors of various localities and representatives of different NGOs after privately conducted tests showed that contaminated water was being supplied to many localities including Satellite Town, Sadiqabad, Asghar Mal, Liaquat Bagh area, Raja Bazaar, Committee Chowk etc.
The district health department in the findings of its own tests had also termed the Agency's water unfit for human consumption in most of the areas.
Similarly, an NGO (The Network) had also released the findings of various samples taken from Kali Tanki and analysed at the National Institute of Health (NIH) and Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) in October 2003.
The findings showed that water in Kali Tanki, which had the capacity of 300,000 gallons of water, was dangerously contaminated. About 40,000 consumers are being supplied water from the Kali Tanki.