RAWALPINDI: The Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) with the cooperation of UN Habitat has launched a Rs150 million project for rainwater harvesting in 30 public buildings, the metro elevated road and public parks in the garrison city.

A senior official of Wasa said under the project, water tanks will be constructed in government buildings and parks to cope with water shortage and reduce flooding.

These storage tanks will be constructed at the Metro Elevated Road, Government Girls Associate College Sir Syed Road, Wasa head offices, District Health Authority offices, Government Mian Shehabaz Sharif Associate College Khayaban-i-Sir Syed, Liaquat Bagh mosque, Government Girls High School Khayaban-i-Sir Syed, Government Girls Higher Secondary School Bagh-i- Sardaran, Gordon College, Hashmat Ali College, Fatima Jinnah Women University, Pir Mehar Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University, First Women University, Rawalpindi Institute of Urology and Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Rawalpindi offices.

He said that the harvested rainwater will be used for gardening, cleaning, washing purposes and specific building flashing systems.

Water tanks to be constructed in 30 govt buildings, public parks, says Wasa official

He said, “Rawalpindi relies on Rawal and Khanpur dams to meet its water demand. Tubewells and bores are also a key source of water in the areas of the city. The two major sources supply 15 million gallon per day water. There are other stakeholders who also get their share from these dams. The city has to face acute water shortage in summer and pre-monsoon period.”

He said on the one hand there was the acute water scarcity and on the other, streets were often flooded during the monsoon season.

This has led to serious problems with quality and quantity of groundwater. The rainfall occurs during short spells of high intensity.

“Because of the short duration of heavy rain, most of the rain falling on the surface tends to flow away rapidly leaving very little for recharge of groundwater,” he said.

In view of this, he said Wasa and United Nations Human Settlements Programme were implementing a project on enhance community, local and national-level urban climate change resilience to water scarcity caused by floods and droughts with a focus on constructing and installing 20 district/city-level rainwater harvesting facilities in public buildings and on water storage in public gardens.

Wasa Managing Director Saleem Ashraf said the country had been facing rapid climate change for the last few years and the water resources were at extremely vulnerable state. Water scarcity is the principal issue in most of the developed cities of the country.

He said the rain harvesting project had been launched to meet the water shortage in the coming summer season and the construction of the water tanks will be completed by June to get benefit from the next monsoon.

“The Rawalpindi city has been prone to a major migration of people since last two decades which incredibly increases the water demand. The city is growing at the rate of 3pc per year. The average water demand within the city (excluding cantonment board) is 64 million gallon per day whereas on an average 17 MGD water shortage has to be encountered every year,” he said.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2024