Rawalpindi faces acute water shortage amid scorching heat: Report
The citizens of Rawalpindi continue to face difficulties as the gap grows between water supply and demand.
Pakistan’s Rawalpindi is facing a water shortage as the city’s groundwater level continues to deplete amid sweltering heat. The crisis also increased due to water shortage in the Rawal and Khanpur dams as they touched the dead level causing water shortage in one of major cities of Pakistan, according to a report by Express Tribune.
The citizens of Rawalpindi continue to face difficulties as the gap grows between water supply and demand. This has also led to a thriving water tanker business in the city with one tanker selling at PKR 3,000 to PKR 4,000. Out of the 460 tubewells which are functioning under the Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA), three of them have halted extracting water from 350 feet underground. The pressure of water which was being supplied from the 600 feet deep tubewells has also declined.
The report also highlights that the population of 1.6 million people continue to face difficulties as civic bodies are currently supplying 46 million gallons of water daily against the requirement of 59 million due to depleting water level in Rawal and Khanpur Dam. At least 150 tubewells of Rawalpindi Cantonment and Chaklala have started drying up due to depleting groundwater levels. Incessant load shedding has also added to woes as it has stopped tubewells from working to their full capacity.
WASA managing director Raja Shaukat Mehmood said that due to the crisis authorities are now understanding that Rawalpindi needs futuristic plans to mitigate its water needs. Mehmood also said that Rawal and Khanpur dams along with the tube wells are not capable of meeting the future water demand of Rawalpindi.
Experts warned the Pakistan government earlier that famine-like situations may arise in Pakistan due to water scarcity across the country if the issues remain unresolved.
(with inputs from ANI)