ISLAMABAD: In the Federal Capital, where middle and lower-middle income sectors have been facing chronic water shortage for decades, the elite farm houses have been getting water from “drinking water supply lines”.

The Mayor Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) during a briefing to the National Assembly Standing Committee on Thursday revealed that Capital Development Authority (CDA) provided connections to the farm houses, located around the federal capital, from the drinking water supply lines. 

After this shocking revelation the standing committee, headed by MNA Raja Khurram Shahzad Nawaz, recommended that 24 connections provided to farm houses may be disconnected immediately. 

It is not clear how many farm houses have been provided connections from drinking water supply lines and how much water they have consumed since they were set-up. 

In the master plan of the capital city, farm houses were reserved to grow fruits and vegetables for the residents to make Islamabad self-sufficient in food. However, over the years these farms houses were allocated to the influential people, most of them use them as luxury residences 

Many areas of the federal capital, the middle and lower middle class sectors of Islamabad directly run by CDA have been facing severe water shortage. The residents of these sectors have to buy water from tankers.

Residents of these sectors fear that it is not clear if the recommendation of the committee will be implemented since the farm houses belong to the elite class.

Briefing on shortage of water in sector I-10, Mayor MCI informed the members of the NA penal that supply of water is affected due to scheduled and unscheduled load shedding in the area, electrical and mechanical faults at tube wells and leakages in water supply lines. He assured that the faulty tube wells will be rectified within one week.

The Mayor also briefed the Committee about sanitation services in rural areas of Islamabad. He said sanitation services in rural areas were not provided before establishment of MCI and it was under control of ICT Administration. Sanitation directorate started provision of services partially in rural areas, he added. 

Mayor claimed that performance of MCI was badly affected due to legal and financial issues faced by it. The Committee noted with great concern that the public is suffering due to differences between MCI and CDA, so, the Committee directed the Ministry of Interior to resolve disputes between CDA and MCI.