PM dissatisfied with drinking water project
26th September 2008
Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani on Thursday expressed his dissatisfaction over the clean drinking water programme initiated by the previous government in 2004 and constituted a committee to thoroughly examine the progress of the programme and submit its report within one month.
He took this decision while chairing a meeting to review the performance of the programme at the Prime Minister House. The committee will be headed by the Adviser to the PM on Industries, Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo. Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Salman Farooqui, Secretaries Industries, Science & Technology, Environment, Finance, Local Government and Chairman Alternative Energy Board are the members of the committee. The committee is also tasked to examine the use of solar technology for clean drinking water filtration plants in addition to working out modalities for better coordination with the provinces to make the programme successful.
In the meantime, the prime minister has directed that the ongoing schemes should not be disturbed.Addressing the meeting, he said the provision of clean drinking water was a high priority of the government and all out efforts would be made to achieve this objective. He, however, observed that the project was initiated in haste without proper feasibility study and due consultative process with all the stakeholders. He expressed disappointment over the progress of the programme, saying the project which should have been completed by December 2007 was only 3 per cent complete.
The meeting was informed that the programme was not well-conceived as it lacked feasibility study, due consultative process, unrealistic estimates, maintenance contract and labour intensive technology. The meeting was further informed that the provincial/district governments were not taken on board while the Tehsil administrations showed their inability to provide operators who could sustain the operation. The meeting was informed that in Fata out of 63 approved sites for clean drinking water facilities, only one had been completed, 158 out of 986 in the NWFP including 10 in Northern Areas, 99 out of 409 in Balochistan and 37 out of 1,005 in Sindh and none in the Punjab.
The prime minister was also briefed on the use of solar technology for clean drinking water. The meeting was informed that solar driven system was a stand-alone filtration system for drinking water, which was cheap and required minimum maintenance and operational cost.
Source: The International News