BY BILAL HUSSAIN
KARACHI: Water availability per capita in Pakistan has depleted to a level of 1017 cubic meter tons in Pakistan – very close to 1000 cubic meters, which is considered as an alarming situation and is called scarcity threshold.
“Per capita, water availability has been decreasing in Pakistan and it has reached to 1017 cubic meters while 1000 tons per capita availability is considered alarming for a country. Moreover, this low 1200 tons per capita availability is not evenly distributed. People in Thar may not even be having a 100-ton per capita availability,” said Nestle Karachi Factory Manager Nasir Mansoor while speaking to a group of journalists on ‘World Water Day’ at Nestle’s Karachi Plant.
World Water Day is celebrated across the globe on March 22 to highlight the importance of clean water availability.
According to Nestle Public Affairs Manager Madiha Javed Qureshi, the company has put Pakistan among its top prioritised countries with 80,000 people getting free clean water out of the total of 440,000 people worldwide. Nestle has installed eight free clean water facilities in Pakistan- each having a capacity to provide clean water to 10,000 people every day.
Nasir Mansoor also highlighted that 90% of the available water is used in agriculture in Pakistan and 50% of the total water is wasted due to old techniques of farming in Pakistan.
Separately in Lahore, a “Together for Water” seminar was jointly held by Nestlé Pakistan and Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) on World Water Day, at LUMS’ Centre of Water Informatics and Technology where experts discussed how technology can be used in agriculture for efficient water management.
The stressed the need for industry working to work with the academia to find solutions to reduce water usage and subsequently conserve water.
WORLD WATER DAY OBSERVED IN MIRPURKHAS:
The first water expo 2018 on the occasion of World Water Day brought together water users, farmers, peasant women, artisans, experts, water companies, academia and financial institutions was held in Mirpurkhas on Thursday to observe the World Water Day.
The event was jointly organised by Research Development Foundation (RDF), Sindh Agriculture University (SAU) Tadojam, Mehran University Engineering and Technology (MUET), Sindh Irrigation Drainage Authority (SIDA), Mirpurkhas District administration and Laar Humanitarian Development Programme (LHDP) in collaboration with Trocair Pakistan at Horticulture Research Institute Mirpurkhas city.
Besides RDF, all the partner organisations, banks, a large number of artisan community women, public and private companies, water forums and farmer organisations set up stalls and displayed their products, specially the colourful work at women-led stalls attracted people to see and purchase.
