WASA to expand service area

Consumer survey planned due to rapid urbanisation

DIJKOT:

In view of rapid urbanisation, the Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) has decided to conduct a consumer survey to extend its service area to localities around Faisalabad so that revenue generation can be ensured to clear liabilities of electric supply and other day to day expenses.

WASA Managing Director Amir Aziz told media persons that the civic agency had 330,000 consumers, but only 45 per cent of them paid their water and sewerage service bills.

He said efforts were being made to bring the defaulters into the tax net and remove disparity between the organisation’s income and expenditure through good governance. The monthly revenue of WASA is about Rs110 million, while its operational expenses are Rs240 million.

He said WASA’s consumer data had been collected many years earlier and it could not be relied upon.

Aziz, who had taken over the charge recently, said revenue generation, better service delivery and de-silting of drains were his priorities.

He said FESCO dues of over Rs1 billion might break the back of WASA, which had demanded a bailout package from the Punjab Housing Department to clear the arears.

He said several big projects of water supply, sewerage and improvement of equipment had been completed with the assistance of foreign development agencies.

The growing population of the city requires a system upgrade to cope with the challenges of disposal of waste and provision of potable water to all the residents, he added.

The Punjab Provincial Development Working Party had approved on June 13 a project for the construction of the arterial main, secondary and distribution water network in the eastern part of the city with an estimated cost of Rs7.895 billion.

The scheme is a complementary component of the French development agency AFD's project to be financed separately through the Annual Development Programme of Punjab government.

It comprised of a 20.85km arterial main of 560 to 1,200mm, construction of five distribution centres with ground reservoirs, overhead reservoirs and pumping machinery, as well as 56,500 house connections and domestic meters. Project Director Saqib Raza is coordinating the water supply extension scheme.

An AFD delegation recently visited the WASA office to discuss the progress of the project.

The second phase of the project for the expansion of water resources for the city had been proposed in 2016 to overcome the shortfall of potable water. The objective of the project was to provide 30MGD of additional water from treatment plants.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 8^th, 2023.