LAHORE: The Punjab Water and Sanitation Authority (Pwasa) started functioning by taking over the administrative and operational control of the five agencies in the province on Saturday.

Earlier, they were under the development authorities of Lahore, Multan, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad and Gujranwala.

The Housing, Urban Development & Public Health Department has recommended the government establish water and sanitation agencies in Dera Ghazi Khan, Sahiwal, Bahawalpur, and Sargodha divisions and has sent a summary to the government for approval, Dawn has learnt.

`We hope Pwasa will help improve operations of existingagencies,` Tayyab Farid, Pwasa director general, told Dawn on Saturday. According to Mr Farid, who also holds the additional charge of housing department special secretary, Wasas in Punjab were not owned by their administrative development authorities.

`Wasas were not in sync with their development authorities, as there was no ownership of Wasas on the part of development authorities,` he clarified.

The Punjab government notified the establishment of Pwasa last month, but it couldn`t start work due to the non-availability of a DG.

The chief minister is the chairperson of Pwasa, followed by a vice chairman to be nominated by the chief minister. The other members include the Planning & Development Department/Board chairman or their representativenot below the rank of additional secretary, finance department secretary or their representative, housing, urban development and public engineering department secretary or their representative, local government and community development department secretary or their representative, the managing director of each Wasa, four technical experts from the fields of water supply, sanitation, hydrology, and law, and the director general of Pwasa.

`The authority may co-opt any other expert for its assistance in meetings, but such a coopted expert shall not have any right to vote.

It shall meet at least once every three months at such a time and place and observe such procedure about the transaction of its business as may be prescribed by the regulations and,until so prescribed, as the authority may determine, reads the notification.

The authority is liable to make and enforce policies for the development and maintenance of water supply and sanitation systems, develop, propose, and implement key performance indicators, as well as minimum standards for service delivery by the agency, and review and monitor the performance of the Wasas.

It also has the power to determine, review, and approve fees for the supply of water, sanitation services, or any other service provided under the Punjab Water and Sanitation Act; coordinate with any other authority performing similar functions in any other areas; review and decide human resource-related matters; administer and enforce the act and rules and regula-tions made or framed thereunder; hire advisers or consultants for the act; regulate and prohibit the use and extraction of groundwater; constitute standing or special committees or any other bodies as it deems necessary and delegate or assign functions to such committees for carrying out the purposes of the act; and perform such other functions or exercise such other powers as may be necessary and ancillary thereto.

The Pwasa director general said if the government approves the summary, the four divisions (DGKhan,Sahiwal,Bahawalpur, and Sargodha) would have Wasas working under Pwasa.

The DG paid his first visit to the Lahore Pwasa on Saturday and met the MDs of all five Wasa and their officers.

MDs briefed the DG about the functioning of agencies.