City to draw water from Rawal Dam

The apex civic authority of the federal capital will add around 10 to 12 million gallons per day to the parched city, including by drawing water from the Rawal Dam.

This was announced in a statement by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) on Tuesday.

The authority said that to enhance water supply, it is revamping the infrastructure for the collection, treatment and transmission of potable water in the city.

For this purpose, water supply lines are being repaired and restored while leaks are being plugged. Moreover, options are being explored to strengthen the water supply system.

Officials said that the entire process will be completed within the next six months.

The authority said that its water supply wing had decided to implement a 30-year-old plan to draw four million gallons of water per day (MGD) from the Rawal Dam to help meet rising water requirements of the city.

Furthermore, the wing is planning to make the abandoned treatment plant there - which was once used to treat waters in the dam - functional.

The wing hopes that once it receives its share of water from the dam and the water treatment plant is functional, it will help considerably in resolving the water supply issues in sectors I-8, I-9 and I-10.

Similarly, the wing said that it is working on restoring as many as 15 abandoned tube wells in the city. Nearly 200 tube-wells serve as a major source of water for the federal capital.

With the CDA making around Rs111 million available for the restoration of tube-wells, officials said that they have issued tenders and repair work is expected to start next week. Apart from restoring the water treatment plant at the Rawal Dam, the authority has also decided to rehabilitate the Sangjiani water treatment plant which helped improve the overall water supply to the city.

Additionally, the CDA said that over the past three weeks, since several directorates were repatriated to the authority from the elected Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation (IMC), leakages in various supply lines have been plugged while some pipelines in different areas of the city have been replaced. In this context, the water supply directorate said that its Production Division–II has repaired and restored different pipelines, thereby saving around 1.6 MGD of water which was previously wasted. This, officials said, has also helped improve the supply of water in different sectors including sectors F-10, F-11, G-5, G-7, G-8, G-9, G-10, G-11, I-8, I-9, and I-10.

Similarly, 10 tube wells installed in different Sectors have been repaired. A damaged portion of conduction lines of 10 tube wells has also been repaired which has helped increase the supply of water to the I series sectors.

As many as 12 water filtration plants installed across the city - which help provide filtered and potable water - were also rehabilitated and made functional.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4^th, 2020.