ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Science and Technology on Friday has directed chief secretaries of all provinces to appear before the committee over the issue of contaminated water.
The senate committee had also shown concern over poor quality milk and poultry farms in the country and ordered a detailed report from the Ministry of Science and Technology regarding the standard of milk and poultry farms.
Moreover, Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) director general told the committee during the briefing that injections and antibiotics are being used to increase the weight of chickens at poultry farms. Feed for the chickens are manufactured at factories which do not have the license for this task and provincial governments do not allow the authorities to run checks for these licenses either, the director general added.
The Punjab government is issuing licenses to poultry farms without taking permission from the Ministry for Science and Technology, the director general said, adding, “Poultry farms are a political issue.”
The committee was also told that water in the country was not fit for consumption. At least 84 per cent of the water samples tested in Sindh were found to be unfit for consumption, an official of the Pakistan Council of Research on Water Resources told the committee.
“In several areas of Karachi, bacteria and salt was found in drinking water,” the council added.
The council further briefed the committee on the difference between whiteners and milk, saying that the factories producing whiteners do not have the licenses to do so.
