The bigwigs of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) made no efforts to overcome the water crisis in the financial year and spent not a single penny out of the total allocation made in 2010-2011 for this purpose. In the budget 2010-2011, Rs 5.53 billion had been allocated for the engineering wing of CDA.
The directorate of roads and water supply directorate are two major departments in the engineering wing. “The high-ups of CDA spent most of the funds on the construction of roads, but did not launch even a single water project,” a senior official of CDA told Pakistan Today. The official said that high-ups only concentrated on visible development projects like roads and underpasses, but paid no heed to invisible projects like upgrade and replacement of decades-old water supply system due to which the citizens had to face severe water shortage round the year.
“Owing to this negligence, the CDA is providing only 20 MGD water per day to over one million population of the federal capital while currently required amount of water is 70 MGD per day, he said. “Currently, total water production is 66 MGD per day, but due to many illegal connections and waste of water by dint of old water supply lines, 50 per cent water goes waste. Out of the remaining 33 MGD water, 20 MGD is used in residential areas and 13 MGD for non-domestic purposes,” he revealed.
“If the CDA officials take action against the illegal connections of water, they can easily provide over 50 MGD water to the residents daily. The water shortage in the city will increase further if illegal connections are disconnected and the decades-old water supply lines replaced,” he added. The existing sources of water for urban Islamabad were rains and ground water, he said and added the main water sources were Simly Dam, Khanpur Dam and tube-wells, he said.