Cops fail to boost water conservation

LAHORE:

After the Lahore Waters and Sanitation Agency (WASA), the Dolphin Force of the police has also failed to trace about half of the consumers found responsible for wasting potable water by violating the relevant rules and regulations.

According to sources, in order to prevent the unnecessary use of drinking water despite the gradual decline of the underground water level, WASA Managing Director Ghufran Ahmed had issued instructions to all the directors to take measures with the help of the Punjab Police to prevent the wastage of the precious resource in the provincial capital.

The major instances of the wastage were the use of the drinking water for washing vehicles and donkey carts in the streets, parks and other places.

Responsibilities to prevent the wastage were assigned to the and employees of WASA, after which they issued 2,059 challans to citizens found misusing potable water.

However, fines worth only Rs4.112 million were recovered from the violators out of the penalty imposed of Rs101.7 million.

After the campaign was initiated, the Dolphin Force, which patrols the streets of the city to prevent crimes, also issued 3,886 challans between November 1, 2021 and January 28 this year, while taking action against the excessive use of drinking water.

The WASA officials, after all their efforts, could trace only 1,640 violators, while the addresses of 2,246 others identified during the endeavor could not be traced. WASA took action against the residents of 1,640 out of 3,886 houses found wasting water.

The sources said the Dolphin Force officials had issued challans in a haste on the spot to the violators, but their names, birthplace and full address had not been noted.

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The Dolphin Force issued the highest number of 545 challans in this regard in Allama Iqbal Town, 246 in Aziz Bhatti Town, 242 in Jubilee Town, 214 in Nishtar Town, 189 in Data Ganj Bakhsh Town, 89 in Gulberg Town, 63 in Ravi Town and 52 in Shalimar Town to the violators.

WASA issued 1,634 challans to the violators but could only recover fines worth Rs3.2 million.

The WASA managing director said while speaking to The Express Tribune that the Dolphin Force of the police had taken action against those who wasted drinking water, but due to incomplete challans, the Water and Sanitation Agency had faced difficulties in finding those responsible.

More than 1,600 violators had been traced, from whom more than Rs3.2 million worth of fine had been received.

The official said the remaining amount of the penalty was being collected as a part of the water bills.

He said the police operations for the purpose were gradually decreasing, while WASA officials were busy trying to preserve the declining groundwater level.

He appealed to the citizens to help achieve the objective by avoiding to unnecessarily use the drinking water supplied to them by the civic agency.

Announcing a crackdown to conserve water, the WASA MD had said earlier that those who used the water indiscriminately and unnecessarily did not deserve any concession. He said WASA had launched a grand operation against such consumers for the first time to protect the drinking water resource as much as possible.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 26^th, 2024.