RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: Prof. Muhammad Rafi has stressed on an end to blame game on the water issues and called for making perfect water management systems, re-cycling of water and conversion of saline sea water into sweet potable water.

“A human being can live without electricity, but not water,” he said, speaking at a meeting of Shura Hamdard on the theme ‘Shortage of Water, dangerous situation, immediate remedy and need to increase water reservoirs’ on Monday evening.

Prof Rafi said there was a huge wastage of water in the country because of no fixation of water price while it is being sold at price everywhere in the world through water meter’s readings, therefore, price of water should also be announced in order to make people realize the value of water.

“When Pakistan was created, the per capita ratio of water was 5,000 cubic meters, now it has fell down to 1,000 only and if this situation continues Pakistan will face severe shortage of water in 2025,” he alerted.

He lamented that there is no water management policy. He said that effective population control planning and proper arrangement of water storage in the country could sort out the problem because Egypt can store water for 800 days but Pakistan can store for only 30 days. He said that even Maldives had begun storing rain water, but Pakistan didn’t do it, so far. He said we can do it by making water ponds on empty places.

Hamdard Foundation Pakistan’s president Sadia Rashid said that to create awareness about the importance and value of water, we all should begin it from children teaching them ‘how to value and use water with economy’ and it must be made a part of their training at schools and other educational institutions.

Essays on value and importance of water in human life, highlighting the Islamic concept about water, should be included in children’s syllabus, so that they could understand the value of water in their early age, she said.

Former pro vice chancellor, University of Karachi, Prof. Dr. Akhlaque Ahmed was of the view that apart from being an agricultural country, Pakistan should also focus to have technologies because it was modern technology which boosted agriculture.

“In spite of severe shortage of water in the country, we failed to evolve consensus on Kalabagh dam; because of our inner weakness we could not discuss a national issue openheartedly while some countries didn’t want that this dam should be made,” former judge Zia Pervez said, urging that we should not avoid discussing this important matter of national interest.

Gen Sikandar Hayat (retd.) said that most part of our water went to agriculture sector and a big chunk of this water got perished due to the huge seepage in irrigating canals.

“USA has capacity to store water of 900 days, India’s storage capacity is 90 days and Pakistan’s 30 days that is result of mismanagement and flawed governance of Pakistani governments,” he said, adding that now there is no way, but to develop water reservoirs, start recycling of water and conservation of canals’ water and minimize the domestic use of water.

Brig Riazul Haq (retd) was of the view that new resources of water should be discovered and people and farmers be taught to use water with economy and start drip-irrigation system in cultivation of crops.

Engineer Pervez Sadiq our nation wastes everything lavishly, including water in daily use and agriculture. He said we failed to stop leakage in irrigating canals and we do not teach our farmers how to use minimum water to grow crops. “We should, anyhow, come to conservation of water; prevent the water theft and monitor the use of water as monitoring will bring forth many corruption and malpractices,” he suggested.

Brig Dr. Iqbal Ahmed (retd) said that India was making dam after dam on our rivers, because of her occupation on Kashmir and negligence on our part in the important national matter such as water since we had not made a solid national policy yet on water and water management, which was a dire need of the hour.

“For water is the first and foremost need after air for everyone,” former judge Haziqul Khairi questioned why we failed in converting sea water into sweet water in the face of intense shortage of water so far, whereas many countries were doing the same successfully. He said it could be done, but first of all we should make an estimate of the plant’s cost and arrangements for money to purchase and install it. The cost of making sea water into sweet would be near about Rs 4.00 per gallon, informed Engr Pervez Sadiq.