(08 June, 2018)
President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF), President AKIA, Senior Vice Chairman of Businessmen Panel of FPCCI and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain on Friday said that Pakistan can only store 10 percent of its rivers’ water the remaining 90 percent of water is wasted due to lack of dams and water reservoirs in the Country. Currently Pakistan has the facility to store only 14 million acre feet of water according to reports. There is 36 percent shortage of water currently in the Country due to bulk wastage of clean rivers’ water.
The veteran businessman while talking to the business community said Pakistan has 150 small and large dams in total and is currently working on 26 new projects pertaining to water reservoir out of which only one is going to be completed this year. Amongst the remaining projects, the most important is Diamer-Bhasha Dam which is expected to be completed in 2025-26. According to the report of international agencies, Pakistan have severe water shortfall and if consumption of water continues with the same pace, the waters reservoirs goes to quarter by 2025. Only 3% of the total water of the world is drinkable while 97% water is not drinkable worldwide. Pakistan has 145 million Acre feet water Reservoir in comparison to South Asian’ average water reserves is 1577 million acre feet. Government has to ensure that to complete their ongoing projects of water reservoirs and also construction of new dams.
The former minister said that major cause of water wastage in the Country is shortage of Dams so it is important to build new dams and water reservoirs and appreciated the Mohmand Dam Hydro-Power project and urged for more like the same. According to WAPDA, the land will be acquired for this project by the August of this year. The early estimation of the project is Rs. 938 Million; after completion the dam will facilitate the storage of 1.3 acre feet of water along with irrigation of 17 thousand acres of agricultural land. The reason behind shortage of water is its miss-use of water. Water in the countryside is found in abundance which gets wasted due to old irrigation system while in the cities, people face acute shortage of water. The modern irrigation system should also be expanded to the entire Country which will cause effective irrigation of crops and will save water for other productive uses.
Mian Zahid Hussain said due to melting of glaciers and rains in summer cause floods across the country as there are very few dams store and manage the excess water. People specially former get in to trouble due to lack of water in winter. New dams should be established to manage the water effectively and the ongoing projects should be completed within the least possible time to fight the current bad water situation. With more water reservoirs, Pakistan’s agriculture sector will flourish thus imports of agricultural-products will be reduced; exports of this sector will be increased and will bring positive effect to the Country’s industrial sector which badly needs water for processing of industrial produce.
