Punjab's 144 tehsils: over 40 million will have access to safe drinking water

More than 40 million residents of the rural and peri-urban areas of the Punjab will have access to safe drinking water through installation of state-of-the-art water filtration plants in 144 tehsils of 44 districts of the province. Following the Punjab chief minister's instructions, Punjab government has launched this initiative aimed at providing safe drinking water to people, particularly focusing on the rural areas of the province.
In the first phase, around 80 water filtration plants are near completion to provide safe drinking water facility to over 250,000 residents of the priority tehsils of Minchanabad (District Bahawalnagar), Lodhran (District Lodhran), Hasilpur (District Bahawalpur) and Khanpur (District Rahimyar Khan).
"This programme is bound to reduce the health expenditures of the benefiting communities while they will live a healthy life while women will be able to use time better than they used to do in fetching water from far-off places," said a spokesman of Punjab Saaf Pani Company on Monday. Greater awareness in terms of health and hygiene and the use of clean containers would help improve the life expectancy in the area. Public and private participation is the need of the hour to prevent contamination of fresh water resources while water aquifers must be protected for healthy future generation.
About the World Water Day, Waseem Ajmal Chaudhry, Chief Executive Officer of Punjab Saaf Pani Company said, "This day reminds us to promote water conservation and understand its importance in various spheres of life including the environment, health and agriculture."