Water conservation termed collective responsibility

Views expressed at event organised by Association of Water and Sanitation Services Companies Khyber-Pakhtunkwha

PESHAWAR: Experts have expressed concerns over the looming water crisis in the country and called for collective efforts to conserve depleting water resources.

They said water conservation was the collective responsibility of everyone and stressed on involving all stakeholders at every stage or else there would be no water if practices to waste water continued.

They expressed these views at an event organised here by Association of Water and Sanitation Services Companies (AWSC) Khyber-Pakhtunkwha on eve of World Water Day.

Among the speakers were Secretary Local Government, Elections and Rural Development Department Zahir Shah, Chairman AWSC Nasir Ghafoor Khan, former VC of University of Engineering and Technology Imtiaz Gillani, Prof Dr Sagheer Aslam and heads of all water and sanitation services companies in Khyber-Pakthunkwha.

Zahir Shah, while speaking on the occasion, said people were the biggest stakeholder who should realise importance of water and save it.

“Though the government is taking steps on multiple fronts to conserve water but it would not bear fruits unless people play their due role,” he said.

To conserve water, he said, the Government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has started charging Rs1 per liter from water companies in light of the Supreme Court judgement.

He said that CCTV cameras will soon be installed on commercial utilities, adding that legislation was underway to charge consumers for extraction of ground water.

“The provincial government has too constituted a task force led by minister for LGE and RDD that will make strategy to conserve water and ensure everyone’s access to it,” he said.

Chief Executive Officer WSSP, Syed Zafar Ali Shah informed the participants about steps being taken to provide potable water to residents of Peshawar and water conservation.

He said that WSSP has replaced 284 kilometers rusted water pipeline and conducted 2000 water quality tests jointly with UET Peshawar and Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR)to check contamination.

On conservation, he said that all car wash centers, wedding halls and bottled water companies being registered and installation of meters on them are underway.

WSSP CEO said that over 10,000 water illegal connections have been registered during the ongoing campaign.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 24^th, 2019.