The Water & Sanitation Agency (WASA) plans to increase the water supply to Rawalpindi city to 50 million gallons a day (g/d) from the current 27 million g/d, according to its managing director Habibur Rahman. The project will be funded through a Rs 7,000 million ($158 million) loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Additional pipelines will be laid from Rawal Dam to Rawalpindi city to provide 7 million g/d; 20 new tube wells will be installed over the next six months; and 14.6 million g/d will be acquired from Khanpur Water Supply project. The new pipelines from Rawal Dam will be installed over the next 18 months and a pipeline network will also be laid in the Rawalpindi city area. The two projects will cost Rs 2,500 million ($56.4 million).

WASA will take over the responsibility of water supply from the Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation (RMC), which spends Rs 120 million ($2.7 million) a year against revenues of Rs 30 million ($677,705) to maintain the network. WASA has to provide around Rs 100 million ($2.2 million) for the maintenance work.

Rahman said that ADB has agreed to provide the loan on the condition that WASA increases the water tariff to Rs 50 ($1.1) a month per house from the existing Rs 29 ($0.65), and take over the water supply operations from RMC. The Punjab government will also provide a Rs 23 million ($519,070) grant for the project.