Balochistan CM urges all quarters to preserve available water resources

Gool says EU is providing technical assistance grant of 40m euros for revival of water resources

QUETTA: Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal Khan has stressed the need to preserve the available water reserves for future generation, saying global warming and less rains are the biggest challenges for the environment and the geological situation.

He was speaking at the concluding session of a ‘Consultative Workshop on Revival of Balochistan Water Resources Programme’ organised by the European Union (EU) in collaboration with Balochistan Rural Support Programme at a local hotel on Tuesday.

The chief minister underlined the need to utilise available resources with utmost care and caution.



“Every individual will have to play a role,” Kamal added.
Highlighting the importance of the consultative workshop, Kamal said, “Balochistan is facing a severe water shortage as its groundwater level is fast depleting mainly due to agricultural and horticultural activities.”

He said water crisis had affected the entire country; however, it was more serious in Balochistan owing to wrong planning, lack of dams and low precipitation. “We declared water emergency in the province soon after coming to power,” he added.

He said agriculture and livestock sectors were very crucial for the provincial economy as a large portion of the population was linked to them.



“Water crisis has seriously impacted both the sectors,” he said, adding that following water crisis people had to migrate to other areas which caused demographic change and created a number of issues.

Kamal said once Quetta city had no water problem, but unfortunately nowadays “people are compelled to buy tankers” as water channels in its surroundings and other areas had dried up.

“Now, we need to devise a proper strategy and plan accordingly to solve the water shortage problem and ensure better future for our coming generations,” he added.



Thanking EU for lending a helping hand, the CM said, “The government is making efforts to introduce new techniques of consuming less water and increasing production in the agriculture sector.”

He stressed the need to construct dams and adopt other techniques to restore the groundwater level and hoped the international community would help.

“There are six dysfunctional desalination plants in Gwadar due to which water is being supplied to the port city from Mirani Dam and tankers costing the government Rs3.5 billion yearly,” said Kamal. “It’s a big challenge for us to control the use of excess water and adopt new technologies for our daily activities.”

Favouritism hindering water-supply projects in Balochistan

EU Head of Cooperation Milko van Gool said, “The EU has a multi annual cooperation programme with the government of Pakistan under which the EU is providing technical assistance grant of 40 million euros dedicated to the Revival of Balochistan Water Resources Programme (RBWRP).”

He said on the government’s request, the EU launched an Identification Mission (completed in July 2018) followed by a Formulation Mission, which is currently ongoing.

“An important part of the formulation of the technical assistance is consultation with full range of stakeholders,” he said, adding that the planned workshop would address four key concerns relating to water, land and rural livelihoods.

EU consultants Shammy Puri and Rieks Bosch provided presentations on the background to the current status of land, water resources and related pressures.



The suggestion on future actions included improved water governance, reduction in the use of water by greater efficiencies, strengthening markets and access for the agricultural products, including livestock and last but not the least, training and education of technicians and specialists, who would provide support to the agricultural communities.

Minister for Public Health Engineering Noor Muhammad Dumar also indicated that groundwater resources were reducing and the population living in urban areas was receiving water through tankers which was an alarming situation. He called for the adoption of new methodologies for the revival of groundwater resources.