ISLAMABAD: The city managers on Tuesday decided to engage the services of professional consultants for making the newly-established Islamabad Water wing of the CDA a vibrant organisation.

The Development Working Party of the civic agency at a meeting with CDA Chairman Mohammad Ali Randhawa in the chair approved PC-II worth Rs11 million for hiring the consultants for their technical support during the wing’s transition period of one year.

The government in October last year had approved the formation of Islamabad Water.

Islamabad is a water scarcity-hit city as CDA supplies around 70 million gallon per day water to the urban population while the total need of entire Islamabad is around 220mgd. The rural population is dependent on bore water under small water supply schemes.

DWP approves PC-I worth Rs248m for water supply network of model prison, Jinnah Medical Complex

Islamabad, which has seen a rapid growth in its population, could not explore any new water source during the last around three decades. The city is being provided water from three main sources – Simly Dam, Khanpur Dam and tubewells. CDA also gets two mgd water from Rawal Dam.

The civic agency has been making plans for construction of new dams for the last two decades, but practical steps are yet to be taken.

Meanwhile, the DWP meeting also approved PC-I worth Rs248 million for laying an external water supply network for the model prison and Jinnah Medical Complex at H-16.

In October last year, the government transferred the administrative control of all water-related departments from the Metropolitan Corporation of Islamabad (MCI) to the CDA after the latter complained that it was unable to address the shortfall of millions of gallons under the current arrangement.

“Consequent upon approval of the federal cabinet, the federal government is pleased to assign water-related functions like supply, sewerage, drainage and waste water management on cost recovery basis to Capital Development Authority in terms of section 94(2) and section 134 (2) of the Islamabad Capital Territory Local Government Act, 2015, for establishment of Islamabad Water,” a notification issued last year stated.

According to the CDA summary, which was placed before the federal cabinet for getting water-related functions from MCI, three dams were the major sources of water supply to Islamabad - Simly, Khanpur and Rawal.

The summary said the Water Management Wing was unable to meet a shortfall of 40mgd in urban areas and cannot extend its services to the 1.3 million people living in villages around Islamabad.

“The gap in supply and demand for clean water is increasing day by day due to positive change in urban population and climate condition. There is no integrated planning and management, no water and sewerage infrastructure master plan is available and no water and sewerage business plan has ever been prepared.”

The summary stated that corrective measures were needed urgently to meet the rising demand for water in the federal capital. There is a dire need to unify all functions relating to water and waste management under one umbrella by giving the authority concerned sufficient autonomy vis-à-vis generation of funds and its utilisation, it added.

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2025