Water Supply

The current water supply system serving Peshawar entails numerous independent distribution networks based on cluster-type system and providing for three to four UC’s or smaller unit systems which serve areas within these UC’s. The total of around 170 water networks across Peshawar are available which are old and do not accommodate the supply needs especially to the end users of the system. The urban areas along with the adjacent UC’s are served by a system supported by multiple tube wells. The remaining areas within the UC’s are catered by smaller independent units which are supported by one or more tube wells. As the settlements expanded outwards, these areas got densely populated, which were served by smaller independent systems.

The major issue that was faced was many of the smaller primary units were augmented to address water shortages by adding up parallel pipelines without studying the hydraulic patterns or assessing the transmission or production capability of the system. This also included installing pipes above grounds even across open drains without provisions of adequate sleeve protection making the pipelines more susceptible to contamination. This resulted in random unplanned distribution of lines with no adequate planning or hydraulic considerations making the system to work inefficiently.

The urban areas with dense populations have connections directed from individual dwellings to water supply networks. In rural areas settlements that are not served by the water systems relies on their own hand pumps or dug wells. Most households in urban settings owns booster pumps which are either installed on their individual underground storage tanks or connected directly with the service pipeline for pumping water to the tanks located on the top of the buildings. Citizens who have no access to booster pump facility usually store water in buckets or other arrangements in their homes.

Sewerage System

The existing transmission system for sanitation and storm water, for Peshawar, is a combined system comprising of open and covered drains. The few piped sections of the system are being served by underground sewers. Storm water drainage is also complicated due to narrow, encroached and inaccessible streets. The obstructions resulting from inappropriate disposal of solid waste thrown into the drains creates hindrance for rain water for reaching in to the proper channels of drainage.

Approximately 10 percent of the primary and secondary drains needs renovations due to the structural damages. De-silting and cleaning of drains has totally been neglected for years. This has resulted in clogging of drains and has also caused encroachments along the banks and even on the top slab coverings in the commercial areas.

In urban areas, underground sewer pipes are used mainly to transfer flows. Most of the primary (trunk) conveyance pipes are clogged. The secondary and tertiary level sewers overflow to nearby drains or canals as a result of excessive long term clogging. Trunk sewers that were built to convey flows from the tertiary / secondary system segments; are mostly clogged and their manholes, after being used as a repository for solid waste, are not currently physically visible on the ground. Most of past sewerage system cannot be used due to being continuously neglected and poorly maintained supervision.

The treatment facilities were abandoned and wastewater was often discharged into rivers, irrigation canals, khawars or agricultural land which became a source of contamination, thus posing severe environmental and public health hazards to the residents of Peshawar.

The three small pumping stations providing for the disposal of liquid waste from slum areas are not properly designed or constructed illustrated by the poor performance. The current outfall discharge points of the sewers and drains do not have any permanent design structure and are connected to the receiving bodies through haphazard kacha sections. Ultimately the main receiving bodies are i) two rivers flowing across or along the periphery of the study area – Bara River and Shah Alam River or Budhnai Nullah, a tributary of Shah Alam River and ii) five irrigation canals that pass through the study area. Excreta discharge in the canals eventually ends up on agricultural lands exacerbating the environmental and public health crisis.