Advisor to Sindh Chief Minister for Local Government, Wasim Akhtar said on Tuesday that he has directed his department to constitute a committee for making arrangements for undertaking testing of water supplied by the public and private hydrants and also the bottled water marketed throughout the province.
He was talking to journalists after the inaugural session of a two-day seminar on " Safe water supply in Sindh: Arsenic problem and mitigation measures," organised by provincial Local Government (LG) department and United National International Children's Funds (Unicef).
He said, "The laboratory examination of water would be carried out keeping in view the reports of prevalence of arsenic and bacteriological contamination."
Wasim Akhtar said he had asked LG Additional Chief Secretary to appoint a committee with representatives from LG department, Unicef and the Non-Governmental Organisation (NGOs).
The terms of reference for the committee would soon be announced, he added.
After the tragic incident of Hyderabad, where the contaminated water claimed several lives, it was must to take such steps to save further lives, he said.
To a question the minister told that there were about nine hydrants operating under the supervision of Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KW&SB) supplying water through thousands of tankers, however, the quality of water being supplied needed to be examined.
Meanwhile, LG ACS Muhammad Salim Khan told newsman that his department would undertake survey of the hydrants being run privately without any government license.
He said that most of those illegal hydrants were located in riverbed of Lyari River, used for discharging sewage of almost half of the city and running without testing of water which reportedly was highly contaminated.
Salim Khan said that the department would also carry out survey of companies marketing bottled water.
"A mushroom growth of such companies has been observed that operate without license and selling so-called mineral water. In fact the people have installed filter plants at homes and selling the water supplied by the KW&SB system and that also without any license."
Earlier, addressing the inaugural session of the seminar, the Advisor said that water shortage and increasing use of water had adversely affected its quality. The quantitative and qualitative concerns of water called for an action plan for efficient development, utilisation and monitoring of water resources, he added.
"Sindh government is fully committed to ensure safe drinking water in rural and urban areas of the province and currently it has undertaken arsenic mitigation program with the assistance of Unicef", he told.
The government was working on development of technologies for arsenic removal, water purification and microbial and arsenic testing, he said adding that the problem however needed joint initiative by all the concerned agencies and other organisations.
LG ACS Muhammad Salim Khan, Sindh Unicef Chief Raana Syed, LG Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Director Dr Sikandar Panhwar also addressed the seminar. Raana Syed called for creating awareness at the grass root level about presence of arsenic in groundwater and said her organisation would organise such seminars at district level for this purpose.
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