Water and sanitation: North to get two-thirds of funds

Rs10 billion allocated for water supply and sanitation schemes in the budget.

LAHORE:

The Punjab government has allocated Rs10 billion for water supply and sanitation schemes in the budget for fiscal year 2011-12.

This includes Rs5.69 billion for six new schemes and the rest for 523 ongoing schemes.

The budget documents state that around 67 per cent of the water and sanitation allocations are for programmes in north Punjab and the rest for programmes in south Punjab. North Punjab is said to be the region north of Sahiwal. Around 55 per cent of the budget is for urban areas and 45 per cent for rural areas.

The government has allocated Rs870 million for water supply schemes, Rs870 million for sewerage schemes, Rs500 million for the rehabilitation of non-functional rural water supply schemes in brackish groundwater and barani areas, Rs450 million for replacement of damaged supply and sanitation pipelines at tehsil and district headquarters in 15 cities, Rs1 billion for block allocations for unfunded schemes, and Rs2 billion for water filtration plants under the Saaf Pani project.

Of the 523 ongoing schemes, Rs1.335 billion is for 65 urban water supply schemes, Rs1.47 billion for 50 urban sewerage schemes, Rs650.298 million for 214 rural water supply schemes, Rs463.445 million for 192 rural sewerage schemes, Rs322.548 million for five devolved projects and Rs68 million for six other schemes.

According to the budget documents, clean drinking water is available to 87 per cent of the urban population and 48 per cent of the rural population, and sanitation facilities are available to 85 per cent of the urban population and 48 per cent of the rural population.



Published in The Express Tribune, June 11th, 2011.