It has been an unfortunate week for me as this is going to be my second pessimist post on NUST. Ever since we came here at H-12, there have been many problems with the campus setup. Don’t take it as I wanted everything to be spick and span, i was actually very content by whatever we had. Anyways there is a settling time for an installment that is newly built, also people need to get adapted to a new environment, therefore there is a valid point to refrain from complaining after shifting to a new place. The matters get worse when ignorance comes into the scene.
- From Left to right: A clean water filter | Fungus Laden Filter at NBS cafe | A dirty sand filter
Before coming to the main point let’s get a little educated about the topic.
NUST has been equipped with water filters throughout the campus. Each of these filters consists of three phases, sand filter, resin softener and UV module. Sand/Sediment filter is supposed to keep the sand particles out; it is made up of sheets of paper, bound together to make a micro filter. These filters come in different thresholds, ranging from 5microns to 0.1 microns; lower the better. The price ranges from 300 to 3000Rs. A filter wears out in around 6 months of usage or when the sand particles have penetrated to the inner most layers.
The second portion is resin filter, it softens up the water. Upon my visit to a company’s office I came to know that it comes in only two qualities in market and costs around 300Rs a piece.
The third portion is UV filter and is responsible for killing microorganisms. It has to be switch on five minutes before normal operation to get effective results.
It’s here to be noted that these filters cannot be cleaned, they have to be replaced. At SEECS they tried to wash them but it yielded in polluting the water with soap. Hence some of them were replaced.
Now that you aren’t novice about filters lets come to the point. The filters employed at NUST have either never been replaced or substantial since their last replacement. Instead of cleaning the water enormous amounts of fungus and algae are poisoning the drinking water. This green ‘substance’ is visible in both the portions of the filters and God knows what might have grown in the third one because its covering is usually opaque. The fungus inside is responsible for spreading different water borne diseases very conveniently. Nobody has bothered replacing those filters when companies offer free service for their replacements and charge only for the additional filter cost which on the lower end never exceeds 600Rs. Whenever we come to the cafe after exhausting ourselves in the playground all there is to see is the fungus filled filters. Disgusted, we are forced to keep our thirst .
It’s strange that the staff doesn’t bother about such things and don’t report it to the higher authorities. We as a nation work only under unusual circumstances or trauma. In normal situations nobody really seems to care, oblivious to the fact that they might prevent adverse effect of something.
Keep on drinking polluted water.
Big Foot 