F.P Report
KARACHI: The Sindh government through Public Health Engineering Department provides drinking water to 16.567 million population which is 53 percent while it drainage schemes cover 12.513 million which constitutes 40 percent of the population.
This was disclosed in a meeting held here under the chairmanship of Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah here at the CM House. This was the 4th consecutive meeting on provision of safe drinking water to people of Sindh was held here today.
The meeting was attended by Minister PHE dept Fayaz Butt, Chief Secretary Rizwan Memon, Chairman P&D Mohammad Waseem, Principal Secretary to CM Sohail Rajput, Secretary PHE Tamizuddin Khero and other concerned officers.
The chief minister said that the PHE department is most important in terms of provision of drinking water and responsible for provision of drainage facility. “Just you [PHED] have to manage it in the larger interest of the people of the province, otherwise you have vast network and schemes” he directed the minister and the secretary of PHED.
Secretary PHE dept Tamizuddin Khero said that the total quantity of water required for drinking purpose in existing schemes [of PHED} is about 340 mgd, out of which 122 mgd is ground water and the remaining 218mgd is surface water. On this the chief minister said that there was further need of assessing the quantity of ground water and testing its quality.
Secretary PHE dept Tamizuddin Khero briefing the chief minister said that the government provides water supply to 16.567 million population of rural and urban areas of the province, except Karachi and Hyderabad which become to 53 percent of the population. Similarly, the department had developed drainage network covering 12.513 million population which comes to 40 percent of the total population of the province. It may be noted that Karachi and Hyderabad urban areas have their own drainage and water supply systems and organization. Therefore, their facilities have not been counted or included here.
He said that according to the new population census total population of the provinces comes to 27. 888 million in which 24. 91 million or 52 percent is urban and 22. 975 million or 47.98 percent. The PHE department serves 31. 243 million population which is 65.24 percent all over Sindh.
Minister Population Fayaz Butt said that there is sweet water zone where 184 urban water supply schemes, including 13 RO Plants are working. They are Ghotki with two schemes, Sukkur four, Khairpur 22, Naushehroferoze 11, Shaheed Benazirabad , Larkana seven, seven Shikarpur seven, Jacobabad four, Kamber Nine, Kashmore three and Dadu eight. However, four RO plants have been given to Qambar. This shows that through 184 water supply schemes, including 13 RO plants drinking water is provided to 7.922 million populations living in the rural areas.
The chief minister said that the ground water quality in the sweet water zone is also deteriorating for which separate measure would be adopted to improve its quality.
Given details of other Urban water supply schemes where RO he said Badin has 18 water supply schemes, including six RO plants, Hyderabad two schemes, Jamshoro Six, Mirpurkhas seven, Matiari seven, Sujawal five, Sanghar 14, Thatta six, Umerkot 11, Tando Mohammad Khan three, Tando Allahyar six and Tharparkar six. This area has population of 7.9 million.
The chief minister appreciating the vast network of services of PHE department in water supply and drainage said that he has reports that various schemes of PHED need to be rehabilitated. On this the PHE dept secretary said that he has proposed 1671 schemes for overhauling
The department has proposed his department has worked a plan for new 2225 water supply and drainange schemes for Rs97 billion. On this the chief minister directed him to work out a priority list and then float a summary for approval.
