WASA Launches Drive to Test Quality of Water

APP

Rawalpindi: Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) Rawalpindi, on the directives of the Director General (DG) Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) Kinza Murtaza, has launched a comprehensive campaign to test the quality of water.

According to a WASA spokesman, the agency under a comprehensive campaign would test the quality of water being fetched from all resources and supplied to the consumers.

In this regard, a meeting was held here on Wednesday under the chairmanship of DG RDA. 

Managing Director (MD) WASA, Muhammad Saleem Ashraf briefed the DG that a state-of-the-art laboratory to check water quality had been established in Rawal Dam Filtration Plant which is regularly monitoring and analyzing the quality of water being fetched from Rawal Dam, Khanpur Dam, WASA tube wells and water filtration plants of WASA. 

Currently WASA Lab is analyzing three types of water quality parameters namely physical, chemical and bacteriological parameters, the DG was informed.

Physical parameters include water appearance, temperature, pollution, oxygen concentration and TDS level in water while chemical parameters include alkalinity, hardness, sulphate, calcium, magnesium, chlorides, chlorine, sulphite, nitrate, ammonia, iron and arsenic of water. Bacteriological parameters include total coliform and fecal coliform count.

The Assistant Director (Water Quality)/Junior Research Officer is responsible for obtaining, analyzing and submitting reports of water samples to assess water quality as per WHO’s global standards for safe drinking water.

A comprehensive plan for regular monitoring of the quality of WASA’s surface and ground water sources had been developed and implemented, the DG was briefed.

Rawalpindi city is divided into six zones namely West-I, East-I, West-II, East-II, PP-12 and PP-13.

Assistant Director, Water Quality along with laboratory staff inspects and collects samples of water from 40 tube wells and 10 filtration plants on a weekly basis. 

The DG was further briefed that the water testing and monitoring project for WASA areas had been completed in three months. 

WASA is running 127 filtration plants in its jurisdiction which were rehabilitated and activated under the government’s cleanliness drive.

At the end of the meeting, the DG emphasized the importance of quality of water being supplied to the citizens and expressed satisfaction with the water quality assurance mechanism of WASA Rawalpindi. 

However, the DG further directed that there should be a zero tolerance policy on contaminated water and all Standard Operating Procedures should strictly be followed in this regard. 

She warned that negligence on part of the officials concerned would not be tolerated and informed that she would monitor the water quality and strict action would be taken if any negligence is found.