KARACHI: Balochistan’s Pakistan Tehreek Insaf (PTI) women wing President Fehmida Jamali has said that the people of Gwadar are in urgent need of water.
Clean drinking water is a constitutional right of every citizen and the government has failed to provide it. “Transforming Gwadar into a Pakistani Dubai, New York, or Shanghai can wait. Drinking water for the people of Gwadar cannot,” she said.
Though it is hard to imagine going without clean drinking water for 15 to 20 days consecutively, for the citizens of Gwadar, it is a fact of life. Residents of this coastal city get clean drinking water for just one hour, every two to three weeks.
Fehmida advised, “If you come to Gwadar, bring clean drinking water”.
Fehmida, while criticising the federal government, said that the centre thinks the multibillion CPEC projects will somehow transform Balochistan and free it from the dual scourges of poverty and insurgency that have plagued the province for years.
Politicians and the military establishment initiate ambitious projects with great fanfare, claiming that they will turn Pakistan into the next Asian tiger but Gwadar has yet to gain anything from all these projects, she said.
Over the years, many people have sought to draw attention to the gravity of the water supply issue in Gwadar. The problem is not new, she added.
Why does this untenable situation persist year after year? It’s not too difficult to comprehend. It can be stated in a single sentence: Over 200,000 people in this port city are in desperate need of access to clean drinking water. And yet for some reason, a solution to this very basic problem has not been forthcoming, she concluded.