IMC, CCB, RCB to devise water distribution formula

CCB, RCB facing water shortage; say municipality takes most of supply from Rawal, Khanpur dams

RAWALPINDI: Cantonment boards and Islamabad Municipal Corporation (IMC) will meet today to discuss water distribution formula from Khanpur Dam water supply scheme.

A meeting held earlier this week between the Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RMC), Chaklala Cantonment Board (CCB) and IMC had discussed the issue of inadequate water supply. RMC, CCB President Brigadier Shehzad Tanvir chaired the meeting besides acting as a mediator.

CCB representatives had complained of unjust water supply from Khanpur water supply project. The meeting decided that the final decision would be announced by Brig Tanvir in a meeting on Friday.

The meeting was told that Rawal Dam water supply project was unable supply 30 million gallons per day (MGD) to meet the requirement of RCB and CCB residents.

The CCB representative said they were getting only 0.4MGD water, which was a little fraction of the 9MGD RCB was getting from the Rawal Dam.

Owing to this, CCB was facing water scarcity in its various areas. He added that installed tube-wells were insufficient to fulfill the requirement.

RCB officials also presented details of water requirement.

The meeting was informed that IMC gets water supply from both Khanpur and Rawal dams while it also supplies water to a few civilian areas of CCB.

Officials said that collectively, both cantonments were facing a shortage of water for a long time.

The crisis has exacerbated to such a level that these days, cantonment areas get water only on alternate days, that too for a brief period of 30 minutes, leaving many localities parched in the scorching hot weather.

Further, water supply from tube-wells was getting infeasible by the day. Excessive drawing was depleting groundwater resource, officials told the meeting.

Tube-wells were going dry and people were digging deeper and deeper to draw water.

They said that residents of both cantonments were compelled to hire water tankers while well-off people were overcoming this problem by deepening of existent tube-wells.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 14^th, 2019.