The Capital Development Authority (CDA) Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a Chinese state-owned company for technical study and execution of water conduction project from Ghazi Barotha.
The project is aimed at getting around 200 million gallons of water per day from Ghazi Barotha waterworks to cope with deteriorating water shortage in twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Currently, Islamabad is dependent on two water reservoirs of Simly and Khanpur dams, both producing 65MGD making a shortfall of around 85MGD as the city’s total water needs have risen to 150MGD.
The water conduction from Ghazi Barotha will help bridge this gap between demand and supply of water and overcome the water shortage for the capital. The MoU was signed between CDA Chairman Engineer Farkhand Iqbal and representatives of the CMEC, a China’s state-owned company in Beijing. Prime Minister’s Task Force on Islamabad Chairman Faisal Sakhi Butt and relevant officials from both the sides were also present during the ceremony. As per the MoU, the company would depute its technical team to visit Islamabad to help carry out further studies and help execution of the project. This water supply project was planned in 2005 and was to be completed in 2009, but it faced inordinate delay owing to reservations by the provinces over sharing the Indus river water with the federal capital.
However, Prime Minister’s Task Force on Islamabad Chairman Faisal Sakhi Butt and the CDA administration actively pursued the project. The prime minister formed a special committee to convince the provincial authorities to execute this project to help cope with Islamabad’s water needs.
Subsequently, the federating units agreed and CDA has started work for execution of the project. Butt said the provision of clean drinking water to the residents of Islamabad was top priority of the government. He said the government was actively pursuing these projects to ensure uninterrupted supply of clean drinking water to the residents. Talking to senior officials of the company and the Chinese government, Butt said the body was committed to making Islamabad a modern metropolis and for the first time the residents of Islamabad are being involved in the decision-making process.
