While browsing youtube I came across this very thought provoking documentary on depleting water resources of our cities. Even though the documentary talks about Karachi in specific, the problem of potable water and conservation is equally valid for any other city and town of Pakistan. According to current estimate, Pakistan is world’s 6th most populous country taking over Russia for that spot in 2006. With all this increasing population, lack of development of potable water resources, WATER is set to become the most precious commodity in coming years. It will truly become what in literature, people have been calling ‘aab-e-hayaat’.
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Water is a basic requirement for living and should be a prioirity even ahead of electricity. Any one know anything about the underground water levels and quality in Karachi? I know many people already have wells that they pump water out of. Being a coastal city is the underground water sustainable? Could that be the alternate? We could also purify the salty seawater but I believe that is very expensive, and of course will need initiative from the useless govt.
Communities and neighbourhoods will be have to find alternatives themselves. Even though this is exactly the kind of thing the the govt is meant for. Alas, their water comes from Dubai and they don’t give a shit about the country. What a tragedy. I am still furious that those guys are back in office, but that’s a separate topic.
@Hussain,
then it should be like,
Roti, Kaprah aur makaan,
Bijli, paani aur dehqaan
party card banwa’iey,
warna rasta napiey
Sorry Ahmad Sahib
“Electricity is already on people’s radars, but water is not as much.”
Actually, I completely disagree with you on that. People living in Karachi are definitely more stressed out about water; maybe the reason why expats don’t really notice is that most people living in Clifton, Defence have learned to accept the fact that the only way to get water is to have it delivered via a tanker….wonder how much fuel tankers burn crisscrossing the city.
Pakistan spends next to nothing on infrastructure; China, being rich as it is, still spends a staggering ~10% of GDP every year. We need some massive public works projects to provide employment and build infrastructure.
Thank you for the rant, Ahmad.
Now, maybe you can tell us what you are doing yourself and maybe the rest of us “talkers” can follow?
well all we do is talk, talk talk talk, never any action
water is not the only problem, electricity, food, petrol and many other things. but we talk talk talk or blame govt. we need to do something ourself.
Electricity is already on people’s radars, but water is not as much. All indications are that the water crisis is as deep or deeper as the electric crisis.
Water is really the great big problem of the future and specially in Pakistan it is the quality and quantity of water in the cities and also the issue of water for irrigation that is the challenge.
Very important issue. Thank you for highlighting it.
I been visiting Pakistan for two and half decades and I have always drank tap water without any complusion but over the years I have experienced water quality diminishing to a point where it is no longer safe. When your own senses rather then lab tests start to warn you, that sums up the issue at hand.