Tanker mafia establishes foothold as water crisis deepens in Islamabad
Islamabad requires 150 million gallons of water per day.
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) - As Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) is ardently preaching its development narrative amid upcoming general polls, criminal negligence of town administration has exacerbated water issue in Islamabad.
Tanker mafia is establishing footholds in federal capital in a bid to replace government as major water supplier. As per a categorical investigation, residents have been forced to pay Rs3.7 million daily to water mafia for acquisition of water. At present, 36 water tankers are available in five complaint centers of Capital Development Authority (CDA) but, 21 of them are in pitiable condition. Situation is growing worse as summer season is approaching.
When investigation was further magnified, it was revealed that these five centers registered over 4000 complaints every day. CDA has capacity to address 2500 complaints on daily basis whereas rest of them are being addressed by private water tankers. An inside aware discloses that tanker mafia supplies water to over 1500 houses and handover a receipt of Rs2000 to Rs2500 against each delivery. Similarly, CDA charges official rate of Rs200 for filling 1/3 part of water tank of a house whereas residents say they are charged Rs350 to Rs450.
Sectors I-10, I-8, I-11, I-14, I-15, G-7, G-9- G-10, G-11 and adjoining villages are areas where situation has grown relatively worse amid deepening water crisis.
Islamabad requires 150 million gallons of water per day whereas it has only been supplied with 53 million gallons.
Chaudhry Amjad, a resident of sector G-9, told Dunya News that water to his sector was supplied through Sangjani pipelines but, at present, motors have been closed since past many weeks. To add insult to injury, water supply to federal capital from Samli Dam has also been halted. Residents frequently hurl allegations of water supply to private hotels from CTD tankers.
Imran, in charge water supply complaint cell at G-10 sector, told that only complaints of G-10 and I-10 sectors were addressed there. Imran said that an average of 800 complaints were registered daily, out of them 500 were addressed by CDA and rest by private tankers who had inked an agreement for water supply. Imran expressed lack of information when questioned about price charged by private tankers. Meanwhile, there are total 192 tube wells in city and 72 of them are non-functional.
People are sponging dead bodies of their loved ones with mineral water, articulated a PTI member.
The story originally appeared in Roznama Dunya
