Councillors complain of that despite paying water dues water supply is limited to one day. PHOTO: REUTERS/FILE
ABBOTTABAD: It is becoming a regular feature from every nook and corner of the country that people are expressing their ire over acute water shortage in their towns, districts and localities.
Although located on the river bank and lying close to a lake, Abbottabad city too was facing supply issues.
The civic authorities, despite promptly collecting water dues, have failed to ensure uninterrupted supply of water, said the representative of local government.
During a survey of Kehal, Malikpura and the city centre, people told The Express Tribune that they have been facing water shortages for over a year.
Residents said they were forced to fetch water from tube wells due to lack of supply via pipelines. The city residents pay over Rs20,000 a year per house for an annual supply of water by pipelines.
“Our three urban union councils are worst hit by water shortage for more than a year,” said Tariq Abbasi, general councillor from City-I, adding that they had informed the officials of the municipal administration and higher authorities but to no avail. Even a protest failed to move the authorities to resolve the water supply issue.
He explained that water is supplied via pipelines once a week due to which the people face problems in their daily life.
Azam Baba another general councillor said that the three union councils which have an estimated population of over 600,000 people were badly affected. A gravity flow water supply scheme was approved for the residents of urban areas of Abbottabad during the Musharraf era. The project became operational about a few years ago but it too failed to meet the demand of the expanding urban population.
Other councillors Pervez Abbasi and Haris Jamil concurred, accusing the authorities of discrimination in supplying water. Some areas having powerful political leaders get more water than the others, they claimed.
Japan-funded scheme
According to officials in 2009-10 the government of Japan had funded the gravity flow water supply project that was constructed on Daur River about 10 km upstream Abbottabad city and became operational during 2015.
The project was meant to provide 6.8 million gallons daily to 216,000 people of three urban union councils of Abbottabad.
However the cantonment authorities of Abbottabad forced the executing agency to incorporate their area too in the project in 2012.
Resultantly, 40% share of the water for city centre went to cantonment and the urban population was told that their 60% needs would be met with gravity flow scheme and 40% by the existing 28 tube wells.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 10th, 2017.
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