Chairman of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat Malik Abrar Ahmed has said that the water crisis in Rawalpindi would end soon with the completion of new dams and projects to conserve rainwater.
Millions of gallons of water would be available daily with the construction of underground water tanks in the cantonment and city areas, he said while talking to a delegation of Rawalpindi Restaurants, Caterers, Sweets, and Bakers Association, led by its President Muhammad Farooq Chaudhry here at his office, according to PML-N news release on Sunday.
Malik Abrar Ahmed, whose also Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Rawalpindi Division President, said work was underway on the construction of new Daducha and Chahan dams.
Similarly, he added, water capacity in Rawal and Khanpur dams was also being increased.
He said in the summer every year, the residents of Rawalpindi and Chaklala cantonments, which fall in his National Assembly constituency, faced severe shortage due to lack of water storage facilities.
That was the reason that priority was being given to the release of allocated funds for the timely completion of underground tanks projects to ensure abundant water supply to the people during the hot season, he added.
Malik Abrar said the underground projects, which would also help conserve rainwater, were in the final stages’. The construction of underground water tanks at Bhata Chowk with a storage capacity of 200,000 gallons per day and Gowalmandi with 100,000 gallons per day storing capacity was progressing rapidly.
Likewise, he said, projects were in progress in Naseerabad, Barf Khana Chowk, Ghaziabad, Afshan Colony, Tench Bhatta, Tahli Mohri and Wards 7, 8, 9 and 10 of Chaklala Cantonment, each designed to store 50,000 gallons per day.
He said the traders of Rawalpindi had played an important role in the revival of the country’s economy and assured the delegation all the problems faced by traders in the food business would be resolved on priority.
The delegation also including Association’s senior vice presidents Chaudhry Zahid Mahmood, Chaudhry Muhammad Imtiaz and Huzaifa Ansar, Deputy General Secretary Hashim Ijaz Butt, vice presidents Sardar Ijaz, Velayat, Qadeer Abbasi, Chaudhry Shahroz, Sheikh Muhammad Irfan and Sardar Saleem Sher Zaman, executive members Raja Abid Mahmood and Chaudhry Khalid Mahmood and Muhammad Shahroz, and others presented a presented a bouquet to the MNA.
A congratulatory message from the Association’s Patron-in-Chief Haji Naeem and Chairman Haji Mumtaz Ahmed was also conveyed to Malik Abrar.