An American Journal “Atlantic” has reported that Pakistan’s problem of water scarcity is worse than terrorism faced by them. This truth has not dawned on our policy planners who did not realise the dire state of our water situation. We only store 10 per cent of our river water whereas world average of water storage capacity is 40 per cent of river flow of sweet water. We have never realised that water cannot be imported whereas power, oil and coal can always be imported. We generate only 6,500MW of hydel power whereas the potential is of 70,000MW of hydel power which lies unexploited due to apathy of our planners.
Few countries in the world are blessed with mighty rivers like us but we are averse to making any megadam since the past four decades to our peril. Provinces are bickering over baseless vested interests of our so called political parties that are only rooted in dynastic families. They are chaired by heads of families like the prehistoric kings and emperors and operate under the facade of democracy like a thin veneer which cannot hide their autocratic moorings. They use the national resources to their own advantage instead of national purposes. They rule Pakistan in the false name of democracy taking turns by “muk muka” that is the password of our spurious democracy.
DR MUHAMMAD YAQOOB BHATTI
Lahore