Municipal committee fails to provide clean water

Only six filtration plants operating according to international standards

CHICHAWATNI: Under the Punjab government's policy of providing clean drinking water to the people without any discrimination, 22 filtration plants worth millions of rupees were installed at various places of the city under the municipal committee, however, its maintenance, cleaning and repair arrangements have been extremely inefficient.

Due to the irresponsible conduct of municipal authorities and poor cleaning, and maintenance of water filtration plants, citizens are forced to drink contaminated and unhealthy water.

Local people say that public interest projects in the country have never been among the priorities of the authorities, but the officials of Chichawatni Municipal Committee have particularly neglected their responsibility of providing clean drinking water to the people

Most plant’s filters have not been replaced for several months on various pretexts due to which only six filtration plants have potable water as per world standards.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared that the maximum amount of impurities in drinking water should be less than 300 TDS but the amount of TDS in water supplied from 16 filtration plants in the city has dangerously exceeded this approved world standard.

A recent survey revealed that the amount of impurities in water from the 16 filtration plants ranges from 350 to 950 TDS, which has been declared extremely harmful and detrimental to human health.

Citizens have been suffering from incurable diseases of kidney, liver and stomach due to the unavailability of clean water.

During the survey, local people demanded increase in working hours of filtration plants in summer. Earlier, the working hours were five and a half hours from 5am to 7:30am in the morning, 1pm to 2pm in the afternoon and from 5pm to 7pm in the evening.

On the other hand, the underground pipelines that provide clean drinking water to the urban population in their homes are already rotten and inoperable.  Therefore, people are forced to drink unhealthy toxic water.

As summer begins, the lack of maintenance by the municipal authorities has intensified the drinking water crisis in the city.

However, the municipal committee’s chief officer claimed that the quality of drinking water allowed for Pakistan was 1,000 TDS.

Local representatives appealed to Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar to intervene for ensuring uninterrupted supply of clean drinking water in Chichawatni.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 7^th, 2020.