Wasa ordered to speed up filtration plants installation

THE Lahore High Court chief justice on Wednesday ordered the Water and Sanitation Authority to speed up work on installing water filtration plants on tube-wells in the provincial metropolis.

Earlier, Wasa’s counsel informed the court that tenders had been invited through pre-qualification notice to bring in filtration plants with the cooperation of Nespak.

He said the process would be completed before June 30. The CJ directed him to complete the same by June 15, next date of hearing of a suo motu of presence of arsenic in drinking water being supplied to people by the Wasa.

Advocate Mateenul Haq Chaudhry, who filed petition in the suo motu, pointed out that during electricity loadshedding water was not provided to Lahorites. He said Wasa claimed to have installed power generators on tube-wells to ensure smooth water supply even during loadshedding but the situation was different. Upon this, the CJ also directed the Wasa authorities to ensure continuous supply of water and functioning of tube-wells during power outages.

On previous hearing, Punjab government had told the court that an amount of Rs42 million had been transferred to Wasa and process had also been started for installation of water filtration plants on tube-wells in the city.

An additional advocate general had also filed a report on behalf of Wasa managing director which showed that 150 water filtration plants had been imported from China to ensure supply of arsenic free drinking water to citizens. Each union council of Lahore will get one filtration plant, the report added.

It said the district coordination officer, Lahore, in a meeting on April 28 last had required the transfer of funds to Wasa within a week. Counsel for Wasa said some time would be required to import equipment of filtration plants if the same would not be available in open market. A deputy director of Wasa, Muhammad Asghar Bhali, was also present in the court. The CJ directed the Wasa authorities to complete the process expeditiously and sought audit report of Rs200 million funds given to the authority for cleaning city drains.

Petitioners also filed their rejoinders on earlier replies from Wasa and the court adjourned hearing of the case till May 25 for further arguments.

Former CJ Khawaja Muhammad Sharif had taken the suo motu last year on the public interest matter and Advocates Mateenul Haq and Muhammad Sohail Dar had filed writ petitions pointing out that due to dirty drinking water people of the city were suffering from hepatitis and other diseases.

The suo motu was taken on a news item, which stated that Environmental Protection Department through a report revealed that out of 392 as many as 253 tube-wells of the Wasa were supplying arsenic contaminated water posing serious health hazardous to citizens.

The petitioners-lawyers took a plea that Punjab government had given funds to Wasa for providing clean drinking water to citizens but the funds lapsed due to negligence on part of the authorities concerned.

And in reply to the allegations, Wasa said the water was being supplied to consumers through a network of distribution system comprising ductile iron, cast iron, asbestos cement and high density polyethylene and poly-vinyl chloride pipelines.