Pakistan is gonna face some challenges in coming years
Reports by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) have given the warning that the country will be left with extreme water scarcity by the year 2025.
The reports got attention on the mainstream media and social media leading to the widespread concern shown by the mass public over the issue and how people in power have not cared about this issue for years. Supreme Court of Pakistan also took up the case owing to the upcoming predicted water crises and the dispute over Kalabagh dam construction.
The year 2025 is not too far away and if Pakistan wants to not face extreme water conditions then serious steps need to be taken in this regard. There are many aspects that come under the light while trying to find a realistic solution to this upcoming problem.
First of all, the question arises that why the political parties do not address the issue of proposed water scarcity and the parties who are in a race to win the elections and form government in the country do not have any concrete planning on how to deal with this issue of extreme importance.
The only reason that I can see is the lack of political socialization among our people. We do not realize that these issues are of much more important than the metro projects or orange line train. If there will be no water, our existence will be in danger. Lack of education and political awareness bound our mass public to ask the representatives why they did not consider the resolving scarcity of water prior to other less important matters? Why were they so ignorant of the arising issue and did not plan out anything?
Moreover, the civilian governments have never bothered to develop a system to save flood water during flooding. During extreme flooding, that used to happen after monsoon rains, there had been economic and infrastructure destruction, administrative failures and loss of lives. But, even after experiencing this situation over the years, our governments were not capable or concerned enough to build dams to preserve this water.
Today, Indus River Authority (IRSA) issued a warning of looming water crises in Pakistan as only 2,20,000 cusecs water is in the reserves to meet the increasing water demand. Karachi and some parts of Islamabad are already facing water shortage. Water shortage in Karachi is not a new issue but has developed over time due to administrative negligence. Citizens have to depend on water tanker mafia for the availability of clean drinking water.
Also, clean drinking water has been an issue for years now. Authorities and representatives of the areas struggling with the problem seem quite careless because why not when the very same public is ready to vote for them after every five years without realizing that they have to suffer from this polluted water and not the elite political class.
Pakistan is among the top 10 countries where there is the lowest access to clean water. (WaterAid report).
According to the Gulf News report, Pakistan ranks 9 out of 10 countries where 21 million people have no access to clean water that is the basic need of human life. The report also highlighted the number gap between the poor and the rich, 98 percent of the rich people have access to clean water while making a shocking revelation of 79.2 percent of the poor people not having the basic necessity of life available to them.
The increasing urbanization is another issue. Pakistan is an agriculture-based economy and with a water shortage that is predicted to get serious over time, there are some serious threats to the economy and can escalate the situation under discussion.
I would like to talk about the second part of the paper that is the controversial issue of Kalabagh dam and why its creation is inevitable.
''The Kalabagh Dam, is a proposed hydroelectric on the Indus River at Kalabagh in the Mianwali District of Punjab Province in Pakistan. Intensely debated, if constructed the dam would have 3,600 megawatts (4,800,000 hp) of electricity generation capacity''
The purpose of the dam is to produce electricity at Rs 1.5 per unit, in contrast to the electricity produced from oil is available for Rs 16 to Rs 25 per unit. The hearing on the construction of the Kalabagh dam is in the process in the Supreme Court under a three-member bench headed by Chief Justice, Mian Saqib Nisar.
''Supreme Court has made it clear that the construction of the dam is inevitable''. The four provinces have reservations over the dam for years and are not ready to compromise. There's an assumption that the dam will facilitate Punjab more than the other three provinces. Supreme Court also directed the administration to focus on the construction of other dams rather than the disputed ones.
Kalabagh dam construction is dependent on the cooperation of the parties involved and also on the newly elected government. The political party who will form a government as a result of the 2018 elections will have to give faith to the other provinces that there will be no hegemony of Punjab over it. If this happens and the dam is approved to be constructed, it will very much solve the issue.
Secondly, we have already wasted many years on the Kalabagh dam. It should be constructed but it will take time considering the objections of all the parties involved. In the meantime, we should focus to build small dams to confront the situation that will take an extreme turn in a few years from now.
Saving water on the individual level can have a great impact on the water scarcity issue. Every citizen should feel responsible for the water he/she uses. If we start saving water on a personal level, the whole situation can be greatly improved. Therefore, given such critical upcoming situations, we should keep our water usage to a minimum and not use it extravagantly. Another solution is to reuse water if it can be reused. We wash our hands, take baths and all that water goes wasted. We can reuse it for other water needs, like for purposes that do not involve the use of clean water.
So, by taking the necessary precautions at the individual level, we can save a lot of water. The public can be made aware of the issue by educating them through seminars on water crises, indulging the public into awareness campaigns at the community level will make them vigilant and responsible at the individual level.
As this is an election year, the time when every politician will be at the doorsteps of the public. It is high time that the voter realizes that it is their vote that gives them the ticket to sit in that parliament for a tenure of five years. The voter should be made aware that these people are there to serve them and if they don't, they have the power to throw them out by casting their vote. We should look for the manifestos, read out the reports written on the functioning of the government, check if they have worked on the current issues faced by the mass public. If they haven't solved the issue of clean water in your area, haven't provided you the basic facilities, then simply don't vote for him. Vote for someone who will not disappear after getting votes and leave you with your problems for another five years. If you will send representatives that actually want to work for the betterment of their constituency and also for the country, the pertaining issues of energy crises and water crises will be resolved. The government who will aim to create employment for people and improve the economic conditions of the country will ultimately have to focus on the water and electric crisis.