Give Pakistanis safe water to drink

Making safe drinking water available to all citizens, alongside provision of basic health and education, are amongst the most basic responsibilities of any responsive government. However, provision of good quality water to households which cannot afford their own filtration systems, or which cannot buy water from private companies, remains an uphill task for many 'less developed' countries, including Pakistan.

Population pressure and climate related stresses are compounding water stress, especially for poorer and marginalised communities, which comprise much of the global population. This water stress is evident across numerous megacities around the global south, including in South Asia. Consider, for instance, how a burgeoning city like Karachi, with an estimated population of over 16 million, cannot adequately cater to the water needs of around half its population.

This dismal situation persists even though the Government of Pakistan's own Vision 2025 recognises that access to water is a fundamental right. However, many urban slums and rural areas are not connected to any water and sanitation infrastructure whatsoever. Open defecation is a major problem which in turn contaminates local water bodies and exacerbates water borne diseases.

Pakistan's National Water Policy, formulated in 2018, recognised the need to ensure that all citizens are provided access to water. Yet, the state shirks away from its responsibility of investing in the infrastructure needed to ensure uniform access to clean water to homes across urban and rural areas. The lack of maintenance of existing water infrastructure results in frequent mixing of water and sewage, which causes tens of thousands of deaths each year.

It is common for households of varied income levels to purchase water from private suppliers in a major city like Karachi. Successive governments ruling Karachi have not been able to do much about the loss of nearly a third of its water supply due to theft or leakages, which has led to the dominance of the 'tanker mafia'. The disparities in access to piped water further compound existing socioeconomic inequalities. In Karachi alone, low-income homes spend 10-20% of their monthly incomes to procure water from alternative non-piped sources.

Many other large cities across all four provinces desperately need to improve their piped water systems. Years of indifference and neglect have left all water management entities in a precarious financial situation. These inefficient entities heavily rely on provincial subsidies to cover operational expenses. Such weak water management governance hampers efforts to improve water supply and water infrastructure.

Researchers have recently published robust analysis of the Karachi Water & Sewerage Corporation's existing tariff structure and water resource management system in Water Policy, a specialised international journal. This paper aptly highlights how KWSC policies lack fairness and efficiency which has created varied access-related inequities. KWSC offers water which is 10 to 100 times cheaper than water supplied through tankers. However, poorer households have very limited or no access to piped water connections. Alongside poor bill collection, this limited spread of KWSC's services prevents it from raising sufficient revenue to improve the quality of its services.

It is high time for our policymakers and decision-makers to give due heed to improving accessibility of essential water supplies. Besides committing adequate resources to water infrastructure development, and for upgrading existing water supply systems, entities in charge of water provision in all parts of the country must be reformed to become more responsive and self-sufficient. Additional funding will still be needed to implement community-specific water quality improvement measures such as rainwater harvesting, particularly in areas prone to contamination, or where surrounding water sources are not adequate.

Besides assuring good quality water to all citizens, urgent efforts are needed to enable water conservation, or else, pollution and overuse will further undermine already stressed freshwater sources over which all citizens, rich or poor, have an equal right.