Pakistan Water Partnership is a part of Global Water Partnership Program and volunteering this partnership to provincial and district levels, the launching ceremony of the Farozaan Area Water Partnership Karachi was held on March 3, 2018 at Sindh Social Welfare Training Institute Karachi.
The head of Pakistan Water Partnership Sardar Muhamad Tariq presided the ceremony with internationally-famed scholar and expert on water resource management Dr. Pervaiz Amir as the keynote speaker and guest of the evening.
Dr. Pervaiz Amir stressing the need of trees and water in urban cities said that citizens must come up and play their roles to make Karachi sustainable and livable. He said that because of scarcity and contamination of water Karachi is longer livable now. “Even if you (people) want to live without conserving and managing your water resources then you must build a thousand new hospitals for your healthcare because most of the disease you are infected these days are water-borne in Karachi”, he opines. Replying a question from audience Dr. Pervaiz suggested that desalination plants and rain water harvesting could be two alternate and smart solutions in Karachi to meet out water demands rather banking completely upon governmental schemes.
Sardar Muhammad Tariq was of the view that there is no substitute of clean air and pure water on earth, therefore both must be preserved and cared. He emphasized on the increase of water storage capacity in Pakistan. In this regards he reveals “In case of drought our country has only 30-day water storage capacity, compared to India’ 100-day and Australia’ 600-days. While the Egypt has a remarkable storage capacity for more than three years and this art of water management the Egyptians inherited and learned from their old civilization.” He pointed out that if Pakistan has to meet out its agricultural and industrial demands of water, it must bring improvement of up to 40% in it’s current water storage fold.
Sardar Tariq also told the significance of the Sustainable Development Goals and pointed out the plastic pollution and marine pollution as the top negative indictors of the city.
Earlier renowned environment journalist and the Editor in chief of Farozaan threw light on water crisis in Karachi and signaling out the water theft by tanker mafia termed it the main reason behind water scarcity in the metropolitan.
By
Editorial, Infocus
