LAHORE: An important meeting at the head office of the Punjab Saaf Pani Authority, chaired by Chief Executive Officer Zulfiqar Ahmad Bhoon, has reviewed the restoration of 736 non-functional water filtration plants across the province, including in Lahore.
Contractors and consultants attended the meeting.
The Chief Executive Officer directed the contractors and consultants concerned to accelerate the restoration work and complete it within the stipulated period.
Zulfiqar Ahmad Bhoon said all 736 non-functional water filtration plants across Punjab would be restored by the end of the current year.
Directions were also issued that GPS photographs of every restored filtration plant must be shared without exception.
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The requirement is a straightforward accountability mechanism. A geotagged, timestamped photograph ties a completion claim to a specific location and date, which makes it substantially harder to bill for work at a plant that was never visited — a recurring problem in dispersed rural infrastructure programmes where physical verification of hundreds of sites is impractical.
The meeting also held consultations on the design of newly constructed water filtration plants. The Chief Executive Officer said filtration plants would be connected to solar power backup, which would bring a significant reduction in their operational expenses.
Electricity cost is the principal reason filtration plants fall out of service. A plant that is built and commissioned but has no dedicated operating budget stops running the moment a local body cannot meet its power bill, and once offline, its membranes and pumps degrade quickly. Solar backup addresses the recurring cost that has historically killed these plants rather than the capital cost of building them.
Punjab has installed water filtration plants in successive programmes over more than a decade, in both urban neighbourhoods and rural union councils. The pattern of failure has been consistent across those programmes: high installation numbers, weak maintenance provision, no clear ownership between provincial authorities and local government, and no funded arrangement for filter replacement.
Reverse osmosis and ultrafiltration units require cartridge or membrane replacement on a fixed cycle. Where that cycle is missed, the plant continues to dispense water that is no longer filtered to specification — which is arguably worse than a plant that has visibly stopped, because users continue to trust it.
Zulfiqar Ahmad Bhoon said a comprehensive plan had been drawn up on the directions of the Chief Minister of Punjab for the provision of clean water to the public, under which steps were being accelerated to ensure the supply of clean and quality water across the province.
Waterborne illness remains a leading cause of childhood morbidity in Pakistan, and access to treated drinking water is among the strongest determinants of that burden.
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