Islamabad’s infrastructure, road, sewerage.water lines were never meant to cope with this explosive population growth.
ISLAMABAD: This is with reference to Rasul Bakhsh Rais’s article “City of streams” (July 2). I couldn’t agree more with the writer. Islamabad has become more and more polluted as the years have gone by. I, too, did not see the Islamabad of the 1970s like the writer, but it certainly was a wonderful place to live, in the 1980s. Islamabad’s original infrastructure, roads and sewerage/water lines were never meant to cope with this explosive population growth. Roads have been improved but water and sewerage have not. Hence, the use of tubewells for water and dumping of waste directly into the streams has resulted in a noxious cesspit.
During a visit to Canada, I was surprised to hear that streams running through a major city were full of fish. People could literally walk to the river for fishing or do so from their backyard. The same is true for Cambridge, with the River Cam running through the city, with the river full of trout.
A Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, July 3rd, 2013.
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