Truth or dare: Top officials ready to drink from the dam of Rawal

EPA, others declare water supply from reservoir safe, satisfy SC; official had refused to drink the water last year.

ISLAMABAD:

Good news was in store for the residents of Rawalpindi after the Supreme Court was informed on Tuesday that tap water coming from Rawal Lake is clean enough that a senior bureaucrat was ready to drink it.

“I am ready to drink the tap water provided to Rawalpindi citizens,” replied Shahidullah Baig, the special secretary, Cabinet division, when Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed asked whether he would dare to drink the tap water provided to the residents of cantonment areas.

During the hearing on the issue last year, Baig was unwilling to respond positively when SC judges asked the same question.

A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry disposed of the suo motu case after the cabinet secretary, Environment Protect Agency Director General Asif Shuja and Water and Sanitation Agency Managing Director Raja Shaukat Mehmood submitted a joint statement maintaining that tap water supplied from Rawal Lake was not contaminated and fit for human consumption.

The officials submitted the statement after the chief justice sought confirmation about the pollution-free status of the main reservoir that supplies water to over 2 million people of Rawalpindi.

Justice Chaudhry said if any complaint of contamination cropped up in future, action would be taken against the officials.

Last June, the SC concluded hearings in the case after the federal and Punjab environmental protection agencies certified that the flow of waste into the lake had been checked.

However, the apex court continued monitoring the situation and asked for periodical updates about the measures taken to stop the flow of solid waste into the reservoir.

The environment protection agencies had proposed treatment plants to clean solid waste from water flowing into the lake, demarcation of the Islamabad and Rawalpindi limits and taking action against the nearby polluting housing societies and poultry farms.

In early 2010, the apex court had taken notice of polluted water being provided to users in Rawalpindi as it was a major source of water along with some 250 tube-wells in the city.

The administrations of the twin cities had long been engaged in a blame game over the causes of pollution in the lake before the SC took up the case.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 27^th, 2013.