Drilling for water is no longer fruitful as the water table has declined to unimaginable levels
JAMSHORO: As per the Constitution of Pakistan and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of which Pakistan is a signatory, water is recognised as a basic human right and the state is under obligation to provide safe drinking water to every citizen. Despite this, a large majority of our country’s population is deprived of this basic right. Johi Taluka, a small town in the Dadu district, is an example of an area that is suffering from extreme consequences of the mismanagement and man-made water shortage in Sindh. Most of the underground water is brackish and the little remaining sweet water is either rapidly depleting or changing into brackish water as well. The desert area, known as Kachho, is facing a severe shortage of water. The sweet underground water, which is scarce, has gone down from being found at a depth of 60 feet, to now being found at 500 feet at some locations. Drilling for water is no longer fruitful as the water table has declined to unimaginable levels. In the 21st century, the people of Johi are deprived of their basic right to water. The residents and cultivators have been protesting against this shortage of water, with little success. One can see residents carrying several jerrycans and visiting different hand pumps located outside of the town in search of drinking water. The situation has forced many people to abandon their ancestral homes and lands and migrate to nearby areas. However, with the growing water shortage in the country, which is the worst in the province of Sindh, these migrations will only have short-term benefits, unless long-term solutions are implemented to resolve this.
Zafar Rodnani
Published in The Express Tribune, March 26th, 2019.
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