E-Paper
20 cities in Pakistan lack safe drinking water, Imran Khan govt reveals in data
In a report last month, Parliamentary Secretary for Pakistan's National Health Services, Dr Nausheen Hamid, said that the country's water availability has already fallen by 400 per cent since its independence.
Pakistan is not able to provide safe drinking water to most of its citizens in big cities. The fact came to light after the Imran Khan government presented data in this regard in the National Assembly, news agency ANI reported.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government presented the data on response to a question asked by the opposition, according to ANI. Shibli Faraz, Pakistan's federal minister for science and technology, said in the House that more than 50 per cent of water obtained from various sources in 20 of the 29 cities of Pakistan was found to be unsafe, ANI.
The water quality was tested by the Pakistan Council of Research of Water Resources (PCRWR), said the minister. The water quality in at least three cities - Mirpurkhas and Shaheed Benazirabad in Sindh and Gilgit - was found to be 100 per cent unsafe for drinking, the PCRWR said, according to Dawn.
Only Sialkot and Gujarat had sources where water was found to be 100 per cent for drinking, Dawn further reported.
Pakistan's water availability has already fallen by 400 per cent since its independence, according to Parliamentary Secretary National Health Services Dr Nausheen Hamid. He said in a report in July that per capita water availability declined from 5,600 cubic metres in 1947 to around 1,038 cubic metres in 2021.
Noting that Pakistan was the fifth most populous country in the world, she had said water scarcity was a "very serious threat" that will aggravate by 2025. The parliamentary secretary further highlighted that inadequate supply of water aggravated food security in the country.
Geo News recently carried a report on Pakistan's water scarcity, in which experts warned that a famine-like situation may arise in the country. The report also said that rivers have dried up due to low rainfall.
In the month of March, a Washington-based magazine, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) placed Pakistan at the third position in the list of countries facing acute water scarcity.
