Water is life

We have deliberately ignored storing sweet water with the result that water level is going down in the case of ground water due to lack of recharge. Global warming has reduced rains in the world especially in the fertile crescent of Middle East. It has been reported in the March issue of prestigious “Science” magazine dated March 2016 that mass migrations of people from Syria to Europe is due to water deprivation in addition to civil war. In fact flow of water in Euphrates river has declined due to lack of precipitation leading to failure of agriculture and people are forced to leave Syria.

In our country ground water is being depleted by a million or more tube-wells in the country. Even in urban areas we are experiencing receding of ground water level. However nobody is paying attention to recharge of ground water that is only possible by our rivers which are being depleted by India making dozens of dams on our rivers in the face of our disability to make any mega water storage dam in four decades which has deprived Pakistan to make full use of its rivers. A Syria like situation could develop in Pakistan due to our shortsighted policies of not making any water storages. Since water is life as declared in the Holy Quran, we ought to be thankful to Allah Almighty for having blessed us with sweet water rivers. If we don’t make full use of our river waters, our neighbor would steal the show and claim our rivers with disastrous result for us.

DR MUHAMMD YAQOOB BHATTI

Lahore