The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has greenlit $235 million in financing for the Lahore Water and Wastewater Management Project, aiming to safeguard clean water supply and rein in sewage pollution in Pakistan’s second-largest city.
Under the agreement, funds will help the Lahore Water & Sanitation Agency (LWASA) in various upgrades:
- Building infrastructure to divert water from the Banbawala-Ravi-Bedian-Depalpur (BRBD) canal
- Constructing a new surface water treatment plant
- Replacing deteriorated pipes to cut non-revenue water (NRW) from ~45% to below 20%
- Installing bulk and household water meters across the city for full metering, billing, and collection
- Strengthening water quality labs, monitoring systems, and staff capacity
- Initiating wastewater treatment plants — currently, Lahore lacks any — to reduce raw sewage discharge into the River Ravi, which receives about 640 million gallons per day of untreated waste.
The contamination of the Ravi poses serious health and environmental risks, undermining groundwater and threatening downstream agricultural areas. The river supplies up to 82% of Lahore’s groundwater.
Three of the proposed wastewater plants are expected to be funded by the AIIB, with the remaining ones to be backed by other international agencies.
