The council has already started the work to put in place drinking water sources. It has installed a filtration plant capable of providing 1000 litres water per hour in its office Islamabad to provide round-the-clock free of cost supply to relief organisations to provide safe drinking water to the quake-stricken people.
Although safe water has been restored in some parts of Muzaffarabad and Bagh, a lot has to be done to rehabilitate it completely. Besides multiple agencies, Unicef and IFRC have also sent in repair teams. The USAID and the Ministry of Environment have provided a treatment plants for Bagh.
The PCRWR will launch long-term and short-term water sector development plans in the light of surveys conducted by its field teams. These plans include regular monitoring of water resources, rehabilitation of water supply structures and installation of two filtration plants of 48,000 litres per day capacity in Muzaffarabad. Its teams have recently reported back at PCRWR headquarters after accomplishment of their work.
The data collected by ten field teams in Abbottabad, Mansehra, Balakot, Batagram, Rawalakot, Muzaffarabad and Bagh show that drinking water conditions in the Abbottabad, Mansehra areas are satisfactory, both qualitatively and quantitatively, while AJK lacks on both counts.
The field teams also restored the damaged water sources and supply lines besides displaying posters on different municipal water outlets to identify whether the water is safe for human consumption or otherwise, to help check possibilities of outbreak of water-borne diseases, which are greatly feared as an aftermath of the destruction caused by the earthquake.
Analysis of water samples was carried out in mobile laboratories set up in the areas. The teams also treated some contaminated wells and restored spring outlets in AJK, besides distributing over 2000 jerry cans full of safe drinking water in the hospitals in Muzaffarabad.