Water Scarcity In Quetta Leaves Tanker Mafia At Large

The provincial capital of Balochistan is facing unprecedented water shortage and poor water supply issues resulting in exploitation of the city dwellers being charged heavily by the tanker mafia

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 17th Oct, 2019 ) :The provincial capital of Balochistan is facing unprecedented water shortage and poor water supply issues resulting in exploitation of the city dwellers being charged heavily by the tanker mafia.

The citizens of Quetta demanded the government to take measures to ensure unimpeded provision of quality drinking water and improve Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) network in the city.

Farukh, a resident of Kasi Road said the whole city is on the mercy of tanker mafia due to incompetence of the WASA in providing water to the people. He said the tanker owners were minting money from the people as most of the areas are facing water shortage in the city. A water tanker was provided for Rs1000 to Rs1200 by the tanker mafia where the people were compelled to pay their desired amount without any objection.

Talking to APP, Minister for Public Health Engineering Balochisan, Noor Muhammad Dummer said that the provincial government had allocated a huge amount of Rs11.839 billion for the development schemes of Public Health Engineering department to ensure clean drinking water facility.

As Quetta's population is rising, so do the water woes of the people, he said, adding the government had started finding a practical solution to solve the issue. The provincial government had earmarked Rs500 million for the water projects in the city, he added.

"Presently, water is being supplied to the city by 450-500 tube-wells which were insufficient to meet the requisite demand," he said, adding the government had proposed to install more tube-wells in the city to overcome the water shortage issue.

He said WASA had been working for laying new water supply lines in the provincial capital to ensure potable water facility everywhere in the city.

The minister said the government would establish online complaint cell in the WASA office to register complaints regarding delay in scheduled timings of water supply and also to evaluate the efficiency of the valve men. Strict action would be taken against the misconduct of valve operators, he added.

The WASA Quetta would sign an agreement with a Chinese company to install computerized valve management and monitoring system to regulate the supply valves.

Moreover, the water woes of the three million population of Quetta were worsening with each passing day as the underground water level had further declined to over 300 metres, while the government had been working to stop the illegal drilling of tube-wells in the city.

He said the construction of Halab, Mangi, Burjul Aziz dams was the only source of recharging the aquifer of Quetta.

Utilizing all resources, proper measures had been taken to keep all tube-wells in the city operational so that the citizens would get water on scheduled timings.

He said the public health department had initiated many water supply schemes in each district of the province; however it would take some time to get the facilities operational.

He informed that the government had allocated an amount of Rs500 million in the current budget to execute more tube-wells across the province and convert 250 tube-wells on solar energy. He said the "tanker mafia" was operating some thousands of commercial tube wells in different areas of Quetta due to which water reserves had come under intense pressure. He said the government would enforce the groundwater extraction rules to discourage water-selling mafia to mint money and heavy fine would be imposed on the law violators.