(4June, 2018)
President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF), President AKIA, Senior Vice Chairman of the Businessmen Panel of FPCCI and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain on Monday said that Pakistan is basically an agricultural Country and it is obvious that agriculture is based on availability of water. Pakistan lacks in the water reservoirs and no new dams has been established since decades.
The veteran businessman while talking to the business community said per capita water quantity has decreased from 5000 cubic feet to 1000 cubic feet, increasing the need of more water reservoirs required more financial resources. This government has secured 10 percent of the total development program for water development and first time ever in the history has created a water policy; work on Bhasha dam has started which will have the capacity of storing 10 million cubic feet of water.
The former minister said the K-IV water project need to be completed on early basis, after completion, 650 million gallon water to supply to Karachi through 3 canals from Khejar Lake thus the scarcity of water in Karachi can be resolved. The systematic uses of different categories of water are required in addition to the construction of new dams, he added. Like the developed countries there should be different portions of water for drinking, agriculture, cleaning and other purposes, respectively, which will save the clean water. Due to insufficient water treatment plants across the Country, our rivers, canals and seas contain polluted water affecting our environment and our agriculture and industry is in dire need of water.
Mian Zahid Hussain said Pakistan lacks in storing the clean water, due to which the clean water obtained through natural resources, get wasted without any positive usage. In Pakistan only 30 percent population has access to the clean drinking water, while according to UNICEF 50 percent school going children do not have clean drinking water. WHO reported that the water of river Indus is best to drink but due to no proper reservoirs, it get wasted. He urged the Government to take early measures to save water, in order to save our Country’s each sector and our coming generations.
