Daily Times

Punjab Governor Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar has announced the name of General (R) Ahmad Nawaz Saleem Mela for chairmanship of Punjab Aab-e-Pak Authority, including the names for board members and office bearers.

He rendered his apology to the nation for starting the clean drinking water project with a delay of one year. Including the chairman of the authority, board members and office holders will not receive any salaries or benefits and warned that those responsible for provision of unhealthy drinking water in Punjab will be jailed for two years along with fines in millions of rupees and other punishments, Sarwar said.

Private companies who are selling drinking water in Punjab will be issued a license after investigation and inquiry by the Punjab Aab-e-Pak Authority. A record of all the government and private filtration plants in Punjab is being compiled to check the quality of the water being provided by them.

General (R) Ahmed Nawaz Saleem Mela will be the chairman of Punjab Aab-e-Pak Authority, Housing and Public Health Secretary Naseem Sadiq will be chief executive officer of the authority. Gohar Ijaz will head the Central Punjab Aab-e-Pak Authority and will also head the human resource (HR) department, Mian Talat Mahmood will be head of the finance committee and Rabia Zia will head the North Punjab Authority and social media. South Punjab Aab-e-Pak Authority will be headed by Faisal Mukhtar and Khurram Mukhtar will head the procurement committee, the Punjab governor said while addressing a press conference at the Governor House on Tuesday.

All these office holders will also assume responsibility of board members of Punjab Aab-e-Pak Authority. Along with the aforementioned members, Local Government Secretary Syed Waseem Raza, Planning and Development Secretary Muhammad Ramzan, Finance Secretary Abdullah Khan Sumbal, and Housing and Public Department Secretary Naseem Sadiq will also be board members of the authority.

The past governments allocated funds worth billions of rupees for the provision of clean drinking water but they all were swept away because of corruption and even today cases of such projects are under trial in National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and other institutions, the governor said while talking to the media. “I assure the public of Punjab that there will be no corruption even of single penny in this project and it will be completely corruption free,” he added. He had summoned the Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) managing directors from all the districts of the province, including Lahore and has demanded briefing over the filtration plants installed to provide clean drinking water to the public, Sarwar said.