PESHAWAR, July 16: Irrigation channels passing through various residential localities of the city have turned into sewage lines, causing a water and soil pollution in the catchment areas.

Kabul River Canal, Hazarkhwani Canal, Warsak Gravity Canal, and Juei Sheikh Canal are serving as carriers of filthy water, owing to the lack of a proper sewerage system.

The Kabul River Canal and Hazar Khwani Canal were constructed by the British government in the last decade of the 19th century.

The Mughal rulers built the historic Juei Sheikh Canal. These canals originate from the Kabul River which roughly irrigate 205,000 acres in and around the Peshawar Valley. In the past, local population also used canals water for drinking.

Everyday, thousands of gallons of substances and effluent are being discharged from auto workshops, hospitals, restaurants, and industrial units into these channels.

People living on the banks of canals have linked their toilets to these canals.

Ghulam Sarwar, a 75-year-old baker, recalled the days when he took out water from the Sarki Canal (Hazar Khwani Canal) to knead flour. “The canal was so clean and people used its water for drinking and bathing,” he said.

“From religious point of view this is a sin to pollute water and Islam strictly prohibits this practice,” said Sarwar. But unfortunately the mosques’ toilets have also been connected to the canal.

“Under the Canal and Drainage Act polluting irrigation channels is a crime,” an official of the irrigation department said. The water magistrates were helpless to stop this practice, he pointed out.

An engineer of the irrigation department said that in downstream areas farming community supplied vegetables to the local market after washing their produce with sewage water. Millions of consumers were using contaminated vegetables that were potentially hazardous to human health, he said.