FAISALABAD, Jan 2: The Chiniot Tehsil Council, the union councils of Peerwala, Dolatpura, and Malkawala and members of the provincial assembly from these areas have resolved to resist installation of tubewells in Chiniot for supply of water to citizens of Faisalabad under a Rs3.5 billion Wasa project, which is funded by the Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA).
The decision was made at meetings attended by Chiniot Tehsil Nazim Syed Zulfiqar Ali Shah, MPAs Syed Hassan Murtaza and Syed Ali Hassan, former federal minister Sardar Mohammad Ali Shah, Nazims and Naib Nazims of union councils and representatives of the farmers of Chiniot.
The meeting announced that the union councils in whose jurisdiction this project was to be launched, would not issue the No Objection Certificate (NOC) to Wasa. Under the Local Government Ordinance, even a manually operated pump cannot be installed without prior permission of the union council concerned.
Those who spoke at the meeting claimed that subsoil water in Chiniot and adjoining areas had gone brackish due to the large number of tube-wells installed to provide water to citizens of Faisalabad. They said Wasa had installed 28 tubewells at Peerwala, Dolatpura, and Malkawala in 1989, due to which water level in these areas had gone down to an alarming extent.
They claimed that the Chiniot Tehsil Council at its recent session had also passed a resolution urging the Faisalabad Wasa to stop work on this project.
Former federal minister Sardar Mohammad Ali Shah, speaking to representatives of local farmers at another meeting, proposed that Wasa should conduct another survey of the area and locate some other suitable place for installation of tubewells. Scores of recommendations had been presented to Wasa for shifting the project to another site, but all of them were rejected, he added.
MPAs Syed Hassan Murtaza and Qazi Ali Hassan Raza claimed in a separate statement that they had filed an adjournment motion in the provincial assembly for a debate on the declining water level and its adverse effects on soil due to a large number of Wasa tubewells in the area.
They claimed that Wasa had installed tubewells in Chiniot about a decade ago for supplying water to citizens of Faisalabad, which affected the fertility of land in and around the Tehsil.
Prior to installation of the tubewells, farmers of the area were able to find water for manually operated pumps at 25 to 30 feet below the ground level, but now they had to bore three times deeper for the purpose. In some areas, there was no water even 300 feet below the ground level, they added.
On the other hand, Wasa authorities pointed out that at present over 170 million gallons of water were daily required for the people of Faisalabad city, who had been supplied only 56 million gallons since installation of tubewells on the bed of Chenab in Chiniot in 1989 and on the Rakh Branch Canal in Faisalabad.
According to them, the Wasa authorities had succeeded in getting JICA’s financial assistance for the project after much struggle. The project had been delayed due to the nuclear tests in May 1998, when the Japanese government refused to release the promised funds following the restrictions imposed by the international community.
The Wasa management claimed that they had held parleys with the ambassador of Japan and other authorities and finally got them to implement the project as per the earlier commitment.
The project was approved by the ECNEC recently.