KARACHI Jan 02 (TNS): The Sindh government through Public Health Engineering Department provides drinking water to 16.567 million population which is 53 percent while its drainage schemes cover 12.513 million which constitutes 40 percent of the population.
This was stated in a meeting held here under the chairmanship of Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah at the CM House.
The meeting was attended by Minister PHE Dept Fayaz Butt, Chief Secretary Rizwan Memon, Chairman P&D Mohammad Waseem, Principal Secretary to CM Sohail Rajput, Secretary PHE Tamizuddin Khero and other concerned officers.
The CM said that the PHE department was most important in terms of provision of drinking water and responsible for provision of drainage facility.
“Just you [PHED] have to manage it in the larger interest of the people of the province, otherwise you have vast network and schemes,” he directed the minister and the secretary of PHED.
Secretary PHE dept Tamizuddin Khero said that the total quantity of water required for drinking purpose in existing schemes [of PHED] is about 340 mgd, out of which 122 mgd is ground water and the remaining 218mgd is surface water. On this the chief minister said that there was further need of assessing the quantity of ground water and testing its quality.
Secretary PHE dept Tamizuddin Khero briefing the chief minister said that the government provides water supply to 16.567 million population of rural and urban areas of the province, except Karachi and Hyderabad which become to 53 percent of the population. Similarly, the department had developed drainage network covering 12.513 million population which comes to 40 percent of the total population of the province.
It may be noted that Karachi and Hyderabad urban areas have their own drainage and water supply systems and organization. Therefore, their facilities have not been counted or included here. He said that according to the new population census total population of the provinces comes to 27. 888 million in which 24. 91 million or 52 percent is urban and 22. 975 million or 47.98 percent. The PHE department serves 31. 243 million population which is 65.24 percent all over Sindh.
Minister Population Fayaz Butt said that there is sweet water zone where 184 urban water supply schemes, including 13 RO Plants are working. They are Ghotki with two schemes, Sukkur four, Khairpur 22, Naushehroferoze 11, Shaheed Benazirabad , Larkana seven, Shikarpur seven, Jacobabad four, Kamber nine, Kashmore three and Dadu eight. However, four RO plants have been given to Qambar.
This shows that through 184 water supply schemes, including 13 RO plants drinking water is provided to 7.922 million population living in the rural areas.
The chief minister said that the ground water quality in the sweet water zone is also deteriorating for which separate measure would be adopted to improve its quality.
