Urban Bystander
In a city built for symmetry, thirst always shows up first.
It began, as miracles here often do, with a press release. The Director Aqua Affairs and Temporary Optimism (with additional charge of Seasonal Beautification) appeared before cameras at Rawal Dam, declaring a “citizen-led cleanliness drive.” Officers posed with brooms, students waved biodegradable bags, and everyone agreed that the dam, photogenic and silted, had never looked better. Islamabad had done what it does best: polish the rim of the glass while the tap is still dry.
But the real story of water in Islamabad does not begin with a broom. It begins in 1872, when the Korang was a cholera warning, and in 1962, when Rawal Dam was born to ensure the new capital would never go thirsty. Then came Simly on the Soan and Khanpur on the Haro. By 1985, the city had built its last real source of water. Forty years later, demand has risen to 220 million gallons per day (MGD), while supply limps between 60 and 70. A 175 MGD gap now defines the valley. Meanwhile, 205 of the city’s 300 tube wells sit broken, beyond repair.
Babloo, Head of Sector-C Aerial Vigilance, flew over the reservoirs last week and reported:
“Rawal looks like a postcard. The taps look like poetry.” Nosy Mynah, accountant of civic sins, tapped her notepad:
“It’s hydraulic inequality. Water, like wealth, climbs. Only the thirsty wait at the bottom.”
In the E and F sectors, the lawns are greener than GDP growth. One house in F-7 drinks 1,200 gallons a day, enough for ten families in I-9. And where the pipes fail, markets bloom. From this drought of governance rose a new empire: The Bowser Inc., an unregistered tanker syndicate, with peeling CDA logos and saintly confidence, immune to oversight and powered by official silence. They fill from hydrants labelled Emergency Use Only, selling the same public water back to citizens at Rs 4,000 to 6,000 per trip.
Down at the pumping station, an ageing Pump wheezes awake. “We served citizens before diesel replaced duty,” it groans. Beside it, the Missing Budget wanders the concrete yard, torn, half-signed, mumbling:
“PC-1 pending… augmentation Khanpur-II pending… small dams Shahdara, Chinot… pending…”
Nobody looks up. The Director is busy approving another “citizen engagement” poster.
Meanwhile, the Korang feeds Rawal through choked channels. The Soan groans beneath encroachments. Khanpur sends less each year, its pipeline older than those drinking from it. The city loses a third of its water to leaks, illegal taps, and unmetered lawns. Each monsoon, Rawal spills thousands of gallons downstream because there is nowhere left to store it. We waste abundance because we cannot manage scarcity.
Internationally, Nosy Mynah says, flapping down a Cape Town clipping, cities first cut lawns and price waste before they summon the cameras. Cape Town went to 50 L/day, named over-users, fined repeat offenders. California bans watering after rain. Singapore made waste expensive. Islamabad, glorious exception, cleaned the lake.
Mirza Chughal Khor lands near the spillway, adjusts his monocle, pulls out a leaking fountain pen and scribbles on his damp notepad:
“Targets achieved. Visibility excellent. Water volume, subject to validation.” He looks satisfied. Mirza always looks satisfied when the memo is complete, even if the city isn’t.
By dusk, in G-10, a tap hisses air. In Bhara Kahu, a woman waits for a tanker that may not come. In F-7, the sprinklers hum, unwavering. The Bowser Inc. rumbles past the dam, engines echoing across the dry banks. The Missing Budget mutters, “Pending.” The Pump coughs once more.
At sunset, the reservoir smiles again for the camera, photogenic, performative, and profoundly empty.
A city applauds its own reflection. And forgets the thirst.
The writer can be reached at [email protected]
