Drinking water management for the capital of Pakistan
Third world governments plan and strategize and show their commitment to the efficient and sustainable use of water. But, when implementing these strategies in action, executing agencies always make mistakes, mainly due to organizational inefficiency and incompetence.
The Capital Development Authority (CDA) is the Civic Authority of Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, responsible for providing clean water to the city’s inhabitants. Currently, the CDA gets 75 million gallons of water a day from different sources for the population of 6,350,000, but a massive leak in the water supply system means that city dwellers are receiving contaminated and scarce water due to a deadly combination of poor governance and incompetence of water.
Instead of improving water governance, CDA made a massive investment plan to increase the water supply of Ghazi Barotha, Indus River, spending 30 billion rupees.[ 0.5 billion dollars] instead, focus institutional reform to improve weak water governance that encourages overexploitation and use of water. The project would be proving disastrous for the public treasury in the scenario of a country facing serious energy crises. In fact, according to project details, the water would be drawn from a site that is 915 feet below the Islamabad level. Therefore, rather than trying to discover and build new ones, CDA should focus on efficiently using exciting water resources and rectifying the situation simultaneously, while the recipe for today is the management of “every drop of water is vital”.
Rawalpindi is an old and low city located near the capital of Pakistan and in the monsoon rainy season it faces the problem of flooding. The sad and brutal truth is that in the situation, where the water from the highlands of Islamabad is wreaking havoc on Rawalpindi almost every year in the form of flooding from the rising Lai River [Nullah]. Past records from the last 35 years witness 23 severe floods in Rawalpindi, including a historic flood that occurred in July 2001 (considered a national disaster). The root cause of the flooding in Rawalpindi is the lack of storage of rainwater from the Margalla hills by the CDA administration, as 80% of the Lai catchment falls in Islamabad. The hills of Margalla were declared a National Park [reserved forest] by the effort of WWF in 1980 and now the forest in the Margalla hills has become a thick natural vegetation cover. Analysis of Islamabad rainfall data from 1980 to 2006 reveals that due to the thick canopy of the forest, it provides an excellent model that the monsoon rainfall trend is increasing. The CDA administration completely ignores this climatic feature of the Margalla hills causing flooding in Rawalpindi. Islamabad original developer Constantinos A. Doxiadis and later other international agencies like JICA recommend CDA time and time again for a comprehensive approach increasing the water from the Margalla Hills for drinking due to its purity and mitigating flooding in Rawalpindi.
Residents of the model city are the worst victims of the irregular water supply. The existing drinking water supply system of the old sectors was built almost 40 years ago. The concerned authorities did not improve the system according to the growing sectors and population, despite the fact that the original master plan of the model city was modified many times.
The mega water supply project was justified with the hypothesis that the city is obtaining between 60 and 70 million gallons per day compared to its requirement of about 147 million gallons. This goes against the factual position, since 60 to 70% of water is not accounted for, a figure that is the highest in the world.
The higher percentage of losses speaks of the efficiency and competence of CDA. Although the Capital Development Authority hired several consultants, including JICA (1988), Nespak (1992), MM Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd (1998) and a special study carried out with the help of the Government of Japan in 2000, for the improvement of the supply. to make it model. All consultants recommended that the first 60% leak be addressed before exploring new water resources. Lastly, in November 2005, the Government of France carried out a study on “strategy for the control and management of unaccounted for water” by world-renowned experts on this basic and chronic problem of the water supply system. The study also corroborates the previous findings.
According to statistics, the per capita water availability in Islamabad is over 440 liters per person compared to other high-consumption Asian cities like Shinghai and Seoul, which consume 250 and 210 liters per person respectively. Additionally, Islamabad residents who receive the most water per capita get water for only one hour throughout the day. In other words, it means that despite the existence of sufficient water, the residents of the city get much less quantity, which is even less than the minimum right of a citizen according to the United Nations charter, that is, 100 liters of water per person per day. The CDA administration, being a model civic authority, did not recognize this right nor did it recognize water as an economic good. Otherwise, conserving water and meeting its needs is the best tool to eradicate poverty.
Another grim aspect illustrating CDA’s gross negligence and mismanagement is the unmetered, intermittent water supply philosophy of operation, which leads to wasted water at the consumer end. This devastating policy forced residents to install electric pumps on water connections due to low pressure. Inadequate and irregular water supply is also one of the fundamental causes of contamination and leaks in the secondary water supply network. In the original water supply plan, meters were planned to be installed, but later declared obsolete, visibly in an attempt to hide a massive leak. An interesting fact that may arouse the curiosity of readers is that water meters were installed in Murree in June 1887 which system is working. An effective water metering system holds water management accountable for water losses. Islamabad is the only capital where fixed rates are charged to consumers regardless of water consumption. Imagine CDA’s discriminatory policy that a home in posh neighborhoods that mostly have large pools installs additional illegal hookups charged at the same flat rates as small homes in other quarters. This apartheid policy forced the inhabitants to store more water than necessary. Not only this, the inadequate and irregular water supply due to low pressure also forced the inhabitants to install electric pumps in the water connections, boreholes and dug wells to increase the water supply; thus causing uneven distribution and disputes over water. The metering system increases the awareness of water consumption in a home and therefore reduces waste and leaks. This, in turn, helps conserve valuable water resources and benefits the environment.
CDA’s track record in managing water resources is an example of its own. For example, in February, March 2005, more than 29 billion gallons of water from the Khanpur and Simly dam spilled and leaked into the sea, causing another man-made crisis in the following month for residents. The Khanpur Dam can only meet Capital’s water needs until 2050, first of all if its transport root is adopted in accordance with the recommendation of JICA, WAPDA and other international experts. The same will also save more than 95 million rupees a year just on account of the electricity bill for pumping water. Second, address the chronic seepage problem at the Khanpur Dam, which is 35 million gallons per month.
There is a water crisis to meet Islamabad’s water needs. It is surely a management crisis that threatens water resources with poor governance. The need is to bridge the gap between senior management sitting in offices and the realities on the ground related to potential existing water resources. The need is to use the additional storage capacity of Simly after the construction of the auxiliary landfill, draw water from the seasonal water of the Margalla Hills streams, the optimal use of the Khanpur water resource, in addition to digital water meters, is a Cost effective drinking water solution for Islamabad city. Water conservancy and rain harvesting techniques are part of the 2005 building statutes, but were never enforced. The immediate example for the CDA authorities is in our neighboring country, where rain harvesting is mandatory in many cities in India. Even the annual requirement of the President’s Palace of India is met by its rooftop rainwater.
The above paragraphs, with legitimate facts, are enough to explain that spending Rs 30 billion to bring water from the Indus River would not only be an economic disaster, it would also be a catastrophe in terms of operating costs. Efficient management of existing water resources is the call of the day to turn Islamabad into a model of water governance for other cities in Pakistan, as proposed and planned by the Federal Capital Commission in October 1959, while moving capital from Karachi.
