RAWALPINDI: The Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) has requested the Punjab government to release Rs60 million for the cleanliness of 11 big nullahs of the garrison city if it wanted to get the job done before monsoon season.

However, it gave two suggestions to the government including provision of funds amounting to Rs60 million to Wasa through supplementary grant to complete de-silting activities of all tributaries. Otherwise, the district administration has been advised to get the work done from Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation (RMC) and Rawalpindi Waste Management Company (RWMC) as per previous practice.

In a letter to the provincial government, Wasa Managing Director Mohammad Tanveer said that Rawalpindi has a favourable topography for natural storm water drainage.

He said that it has several storm water channels/natural nullahs passing through the city. Leh Nullah is the main natural nullah passing through Rawalpindi city and its surrounding area. Leh Nullah enters Rawalpindi from the northern side of the city (Khayaban-i-Sir Syed).

Managing director says the agency does not have sufficient resources

He said that the Leh Nullah Basin has a catchment area of 239.8 kilometres. The nullah has six major tributaries; three tributaries originating from the foot hills of Islamabad and flowing down through the city of Rawalpindi where other tributaries join it.

Floods in the Leh Nullah Basin normally occur during the monsoon season (July to September) when Islamabad receives rainfall from three types of weather systems, namely monsoon depressions from the Bay of Bengal, India (the most important system), westerly waves from the Mediterranean Sea and seasonal lows from the Arabian Sea.

The managing director said that after 2009, each year, dredging/de-silting of Leh Nullah at vulnerable points of the city was carried out by Wasa with the assistance of government of Punjab either through the Annual Development Programme (ADP) or supplementary grant.

However, he said, Wasa Rawalpindi never maintained tributaries of Leh Nullah of Rawalpindi city since its establishment in 1998. These drains were earlier maintained and de-silted by the Municipal Services Wing of City District Government, Rawalpindi. After its devolution, the Rawalpindi Waste Management Company (RWMC)/MCR has been maintaining all drains including tributaries of Leh Nullah since 2015.

He said that last year, Wasa Rawalpindi was assigned the task to carry out dredging and de-silting of tributaries of Leh Nullah on an immediate basis. In this regard, the local government and Community Development Department asked Wasa Rawalpindi to take up de-silting of tributaries of Leh Nullah.

“Since Wasa is facing lack of staff and mechanical resources and have no finances to carry out de-silting of these tributaries, Metropolitan Corporation, Rawalpindi issued funds amounting to Rs34.9 million as a loan to carry out de-silting work of tributaries in 2022 with limited scope as a one time loan (Annex-B). Now, they are reluctant to provide any funds for de-silting work on a regular basis and further requested to pay back the loan,” he said.

Rawalpindi has carried out a detailed physical survey for de-silting of all nullahs/storm water drains in preparation of monsoon 2023 and the estimated cost comes out to Rs60 million.

In addition to this, Wasa have to pay back the previous loan to MCR.

Published in Dawn, April 17th, 2023