Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The students from over 400 educational institutions operating under Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) in the federal capital stand deprived of boon of clean drinking water as non-installation of water filtration plants in any of these institutions makes mockery of long-standing desire of students that when they will be facilitated with the facility of potable water.

According to documents available with Daily Times, over 400 schools and colleges in the capital city are running without water filtration plants facility and more than 2,00,000 students are forced to drink contaminated and septic water with reports flowing in that they are suffering from chronic water borne diseases due to use of this highly polluted water.

The attendance graph of students in these institutions is declining day by day as the applications for leave stream in daily with the main cause that they are infected with dysentery, diarrhoea and other fatal diseases due to the use of unhygienic water.

The facility of clean drinking water is next to nil in 17 high schools for boys and 30 higher secondary schools for girls in the urban area and suburbs of the federal capital. The filtration plants have become a distant dream for the students of 13 model schools, 18 educational institutions for girls in Sihala, over eight educational institutions of girls in Tarnol, 11 educational institutions for girls in Bahara Kahu and nine educational institutions for girls in Tarnol sector.

The documents disclosed that the filtered water is being supplied only in 22 schools and colleges and the students of remaining educational institutions are left at the mercy of their fate. Noor Fatima, who is a student from Girls College G10/2 while narrating the state of affairs in perspective of availability of clean drinking water in her college told Daily Times that only water cooler is installed in her college and the students drink water during break. However, a filter of poor quality is fitted there, which has not been replaced since the last several years. Now it has gone rusty but we are left with no other option than drinking the water oozing out of this filthy, outdated filter.

The students from Model College for Boys I10 told Daily Times that potable water is not provided to them by college administration and only a frail, small sized and outdated filter is installed there just to make us fool.

No arrangements has been made by respective management for providing hygienic water to the students in all model colleges and FG schools in the capital city and no checking system has been put in place by Ministry of Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) on this count. No filter provided to schools in the federal capital has been got tested in the laboratory of Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) and clean drinking water is not provided in any school or college in the capital city. Sources said that the filter of cheap and poor quality is fitted with water coolers by the school and college administration as a cover to become exonerated from any charges of supply of contaminated water. PIMS spokesman Dr Waseem Khawaja told Daily Times that any one can be infected with typhoid, hepatitis A and E, dysentery, diarrhoea, cholera, gastroenteritis and water borne diseases due to use of septic, filthy, unsafe and polluted water.