Slow progress: Sewerage project in Rahim Yar Khan stuck

Manholes and pipelines being cleaned in phases

BAHAWALPUR: The Mega Sewerage Scheme in Rahim Yar Khan is being completed at a cost of Rs2.5 billion, Minister for Housing, Urban Development and Public Health Engineering Malik Tanveer Aslam Awan said at a meeting to review various hiccups in the project.

The participants of the meeting discussed various proposals to overcome operational problems. “We need to ensure that this project is completed at the earliest possible …the mistakes need to be rectified as soon as possible,” the minister said.

Public Health and Housing Secretary Sohail Shahzad and the technical team were directed to work in complete coordination with each other to make sure the project went smoothly. “The chief minister wants the hiccups in the project rectified without delay so that the sewerage problems in the city can be solved as soon as possible,” Awan said.

Shahzad said officials of the Water and Sanitation Authority had been assigned duties accordingly. “They are responsible for supervising cleaning of all manholes and training the Rahim Yar Khan TMA staff,” he said.

Earlier, Awan and Shahzad were briefed about the Mega Sewerage Scheme by the DCO.

Rahim Yar Khan DCO Captain (retd) Muhammad Zafar Iqbal said the project’s pipeline had been completed in 2012 and was 72 kilometre long. It is divided into two sectors according to population. There are nearly 300,000 households in areas in Sector A and 200,000 households in Sector B. He said there were seven disposal stations in Sector A, with a capacity of discharging 95 cusecs water. Sector B had nine disposal stations with the same capacity. He said the current discharge of water was 42 cusecs.

In 2012, 156 metres of the main line had developed problems and 1,146m of the main line had developed problems in 2014. The DCO said there were sewerage flow problems in 6,198 manholes in the district.

He said most of the problems had occurred because of an increasing number of housing schemes being developed in the area, a delay in the construction of the Niazi Colony disposal station and lack of required machinery. A 40-inch GRP line (glass fibre reinforced plastic) in Sector B had fallen into disrepair and several areas were affected because of it.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, July 22^nd, 2016.