Residents forced to drink polluted water

HARIPUR: Highly polluted and toxic drinking water is being supplied to residents of Tarbela Dam colonies through rusted pipelines, which has put the lives of thousands of residents at risk.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government receives Rs25 billion per year in net profit from the Tarbela hydropower project but it has failed to provide clean drinking water to the residents of the colonies who toil day and night to ensure the uninterrupted power supply for the country.

Sources said that the contaminated and dirty water being supplied to the colonies continues to cause kidney, stomach and hepatitis ailments.

On the protest of residents, the authorities have replaced and laid new pipelines in the Sobra City Colony, but residents of other colonies continue to drink the dirty water full of germs and other deadly and toxic diseases.

The water pipelines are almost 50 years old, rusty and broken and sewage and rainwater mix with pipeline water at several places.

Water also continues to leak through rotten pipelines as no repair work has been carried out by the authorities.

Wapda Tarbela water wing employees have appealed to Federal Minister for Water Khurshid Shah and WAPDA Chairman Naveed Asghar Chaudhry and others to take notice of the provision of polluted water to the residents of colonies and provide funds on an urgent basis to replace pipelines.

Residents of Tarbela Dam Colony, Sub-city, Malik Zulfiqar, Malik Rafaqat, Naeem, Anjum, Ziafat Khan, Mehrdad, Abid Ali, Waseem Khan, Fida Khan, Shamroz Ali, Haji Karam Deen said that the contaminated water has not only put their lives at risk but also the lives of their generations.

Tarbela Dam has several colonies where the dam employees along with local residents live.

Almost two generations of these employees have worked here.

They said that the old dilapidated pipelines have become unusable but the water was being supplied from these lines. They said that they have spent 40 years in these colonies only to face various ailments because of the consumption of the contaminated water.

They said that the pipelines that have been taken out of the ground after 50 years are the most rotten and rusty.

They said that the government should take emergency measures to protect them and their new generation from catching deadly diseases.

Officials of the WAPDA public relations department said that the issue has been brought to the notice of the Tarbela general manager. They said that a large sum was required for laying new pipelines. The pipelines can be laid after the formal approval of the WAPDA chairman and the Federal Minister of Water Resources.

Meanwhile, it was also revealed that 107 most important posts are lying vacant in the services division of the project. They include the positions of the executive engineer, SDOs and other technical staff.