RAWALPINDI: Punjab Minister for Housing and Public Health Engineering Bilal Yasin on Saturday asked the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) to speed up work on the Chahan Dam project launched to supply 12 million gallon per day water to the garrison city.

He visited the site of the mega project being implemented by Wasa with funding from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The minister reviewed the construction of the dam and a water treatment plant separately.

Officials from the Chinese firm constructing the water treatment plant gave a briefing to the minister and said work was underway on the construction of the intake chamber and treatment plant and two per cent of the project had been completed in a short period of one month.

Wasa Managing Director Mohammad Saleem Ashraf on the occasion said work had been started on mega water schemes under the Dreams Project, including the Chahan Dam.

He said ADB had provided $114 million to the Punjab government to launch four mega projects to supply clean water to the residents of the garrison city.

Under this project, he said, existing conductance main from Rawal Lake filtra-tion plant to waterworks at Sufaid Tanki on Saidpur Road would be replaced at a cost of Rs3.031 billion.

Also include in the Dreams Project are augmentation of water supply and formation of district metered areas in Khayaban-i-Sir Syed worth Rs1.662 billion, integrated water supply system based on Chahan Dam worth Rs28.556 billion and hydrological and hydro-geological assessment of resources for sustainable supply of water to Rawalpindi city and environs worth Rs875 million.

In the initial phase, work has been started on Chahan Dam to provide water to the city areas along with the construction of a filtration plant. A total of 20 acres is to be acquired; however, so far nine acres has been acquired for laying supply lines from the dam to the city areas and construction of the main filtration plant and pumping station.

Work has also been started on a project to supply an additional five million gallon of water per day from Rawal Dam by reviving an abandoned supply line. The completion of these projects will help in overcoming the water shortage in the city.

The minister for housing said it was satisf ying that work had been started on the project on time.

`More than 300,000 people will benefit from the completion of this project.

Clean drinking water projects are the top priority of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz. This project will provide clean drinking water to the backward areas of Rawalpindi city,` he said.

The minister added that the pace of work on the project should be further accelerated and completed before the allotted time so that people can benefit from it.