Twin cities likely to face water shortage for 10 days

Officials say supply will be curtailed during de-silting of Khanpur Dam

RAWALPINDI:

The authorities have decided to reduce the daily supply of water by 60% from Khanpur Dam Water Supply Project – the main source of water supply to the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad – from February 15 to 25 for the annual desilting of the canal.

According to sources, after the thorough cleaning of the 12km open water channel, the water supply will be restored to normal from February 28.

The sources said that the daily supply of water to the twin cities from the Khanpur Dam Water Supply Project is 25 million gallons which will be reduced by 60-70% through a system based on rationing during the cleaning of the canal.

The Capital Development Authority (CDA), the Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) and the Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) will issue an advisory to the citizens to economically use water during the desilting of the canal.

The water supply from Khanpur Dam Water Supply Project Water commences from Khanpur Dam – which is located in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – and reaches the Sangjani Water Filtration Plant through a 12km long open water channel.

After filtration, the water is transferred to the joint filtered water storage tank of the twin cities in Tumair and supplied on a daily basis.

The CDA gets 10-11 million gallons of water for Islamabad, RCB and Chaklala Cantonment Board get nine million gallons and WASA gets six million gallons of water per day.

Apart from this supply, the three institutions meet their remaining requirement from tube wells while WASA is additionally supplied with water from Rawal Dam.

The silt-cleaning of the 12km-long open water channel bringing water from Khanpur Dam to the Sangjani Water Filtration Plant will be carried out jointly by the RCB, WASA and CDA for 11 days from February 15 to 25. The desilting of the canal will be completed by February 25 following which the process of filtering the water and bringing it to the central storage tank in Tumair will be completed in two days and from February 28, water supply to the twin cities will be restored from the Khanpur Dam Water Supply Project.

In this regard, in the advisory issued by the three organisations for the citizens, it has been said that the citizens should be careful in using water because of the reduction in the daily supply of water during the proper cleaning of the open water channel.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 7^th, 2023.