Call for installing portable water filter plants for flood victims

Official says PCRWR developed modern and portable water purification plants

ISLAMABAD:

Experts on Sunday emphasised that availability of clean drinking water could be a possibility in flood-hit areas if the government and philanthropists invested in cost-effective purification filters developed by the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) that were based on modern technical equipment and could help mitigate water shortage.

The PCRWR, in the wake of unprecedented torrential rains that inundated 1/3rd of the country, has built most modern water purification plants that are portable and easy to operate and maintain systems sufficient to meet drinking water needs of a limited population at least.

The council through its regional offices had provided few filtration plants in Balochistan and Sindh to utilise the floodwater for drinking and domestic purposes. The water filtration plants were based on solar power and manual mechanism based on the area needs and population capacity to handle the equipment.

The solar water purification filter had a solar panel plate of almost 280 watts used to provide power to run the suction machine to supply flood water to the purification filters that used to capture turbidity, mud, microbes and e. coli and other bacteria, said a PCRWR official while sharing cost effective and local solutions to provide instant and maximum relief to the flood impacted masses.

However, the purification plant had three main filters of varying capacity to remove bacterium and contaminants from the floodwater through three prong cleansing, he added. The solar based filter could purify 1,500 litres of floodwater per hour. However, the manual filter as compared to the solar based only had a PLP wheel and a handle attached to it for drawing water into the filters whereas the rest of the technology was the same.

This manual filter could purify 1,200 litres of contaminated water per hour, the official said. "The manual water filter costs Rs100,00 whereas the solar based filter worth Rs300,000 which is nominal for any non-governmental organisations and philanthropists to donate for flood affected population," he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 26^th, 2022.