Lahore March 21 (TNS): The Punjab clean drinking water roadmap aims to implement the chief minister’s resolve of providing clean water to all citizens of Punjab by evolving a comprehensive approach towards water provision, said a press release.
To this end, the roadmap focuses on aligning priorities of all departments and companies involved in the water sector. The roadmap was launched in September 2015 and the CM takes stock and reviews the progress every three months. The role of clean water in preventing infection, illness and death cannot be denied. Therefore, to improve the access and quality of clean drinking water, the government of Punjab launched the clean drinking water roadmap in 2015. The roadmap paid targeted attention to improving water quality and ensuring that the province’s 110 million citizens had access to clean and safe drinking water.
In pursuit of the same, Punjab Saaf Pani Company (PSPC) aims to provide clean drinking water to citizens of rural areas within a walking distance of 1 km. The Special Monitoring Unit (SMU) started monitoring the progress of PSPC’s construction of 116 water filtration plants in Bahawalpur (which are now fully functional). The decision to begin the delivery of clean water in Bahawalpur was in line with the Chief Minister’s vision to prioritize development progress in South Punjab. Gauging the progress of the design phase for constructing filtration plants in 36 districts was also part of this phase of the roadmap. The company has successfully installed 116 filtration plants in 5 southern tehsils (Minchinabad, Khanpur, Hasilpur, Lodhran, and Dunyapur) serving 0.35 million people. Two phases of community mobilization campaigns have been conducted which have increased the utilization by 31% (44% – 75%) at these plants. In addition, the SMU roadmap team will also track the progress of PSPC in its aim to provide clean water to serve an estimated 61 million rural citizens of Punjab by June 2024.
Aab-e-Sehat Project
The roadmap’s main priorities in the future will include tracking of Aab-e-Sehat project, to be executed by Housing Urban Development & Public Health Engineering Department (HUD & PHED), which aims to establish over 1,800 filtration plants in rural areas across 21 districts in the province. The potential impact of this project is estimated to be 8 million people at a cost of PKR 8 billion over a year.
Rehabilitation of Water Schemes
Rehabilitating dysfunctional schemes has also been a high priority for the water roadmap. This has allowed the Government of Punjab to leverage the existing infrastructure to enable improved citizen access to clean water, thus saving the expense of installing new schemes. Since the beginning of 2017, HUD & PHED has rehabilitated 274 previously dysfunctional rural water schemes at a cost of PRK 730 million benefiting a total of 1.3 million citizens all over Punjab.
Urban Punjab
In November 2016, other government departments working to provide clean water were added to the roadmap. A plan was created to work with HUD & PHED, Local Government and Water and Sanitation Agencies (WASAs). The focus area of the roadmap was extended to include urban areas of Punjab, as well as measuring the functionality of existing schemes and assessing water quality. Improving operations and maintenance was also added to the scope of the roadmap.
Upgradation of water testing labs
In the urban landscape, existing water testing labs in 4 cities i.e. Lahore, D.G. Khan, Multan, and Rawalpindi are also being upgraded by HUD & PHED to become model labs, both in terms of infrastructure and state-of-the-art equipment and chemicals for quality testing. The up-gradation of WASA labs will also be completed by June 2018 as funds from Punjab Cities Governance Improvement Project (PGCIP) have been received.
Upgradation of 44 Okara filtration plants of local government
In February 2017, a flagship project was undertaken by Local Government Department to upgrade all filtration plants of Okara district and convert it to a model district. Local Government and UNICEF collaborated to upgrade the 44 plants which are collectively benefiting 0.25 million citizens. The scope was not limited to rehabilitate the filtration plants installed by District or Municipal Council, but to carry out community awareness campaigns and regular testing of the water. After careful and rigorous testing of water, new Ultra-Filtration (UF) and Reverse Osmosis (RO) plants were installed. Prior to the up-gradation, 77% of these plants were in a dilapidated state providing unfit water. By November 2017 all 44 filtration plants were upgraded and made fully functional providing fit water on WHO standards. An awareness campaign executed by Society for Empowerment and Environmental Protection (SEEP) was conducted which increase water utilization from 40% to 70% of catchment population.
Monitoring 307 Clean Drinking Water for All (CDWA) filtration plants
The roadmap also undertook to revamp and improve the functionality of 307 CDWA plants installed in 2015 to ensure their continued operation and maintenance. Out of the 307 plants 124 have been handed over to WASA Lahore. These plants are functional and providing fit water in 4 districts (Lahore, Okara, Kasur, and Bahawalpur).
Progress by WASAs
WASAs have effectively furthered the cause of the Punjab Clean Water Roadmap in the urban areas by installing 682 new tube wells in Lahore, Gujranwala, Multan, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad (2008 – 2017). They have also set up 294 fully functional arsenic removal plants in Lahore. Attention is also being paid to initiatives that ensure that water reaches households via safe and clean sources. For this purpose, WASAs have replaced 1,624 km of outlived water pipelines in 5 major cities. In addition, 1,216 km of new water supply pipelines have been laid in WASAs from 2008 – 2017.
Installation of Chlorinators
Initiatives to remove bacterial contamination from drinking water (cause of 60% of waterborne diseases) are also being undertaken as automated chlorinators are being installed on all functional tube wells across Punjab. PHED has currently installed 1,458 hypo-chlorinators on its community-run schemes out of the 3,362 to be installed by May 2018. Among the local government-run facilities, 102 chlorinator installations are underway while 600 more chlorinators are to be procured. Moreover, out of the 1,240 WASA tube wells, 827 already have chlorinators while the remaining 413 are to be installed by June 2018.
