Basic necessities: Majority have no access to drinking water

Lack of potable water stems from industrial waste and contaminates leeching from agricultural lands.

KARACHI:

Most of the population of the country have no access to safe drinking water, revealed a report of Pakistan Council for Research in Water Resources (PCRWR).

The report said that seven per cent of the people in Punjab depended upon wells, rivers, canals or streams. In Sindh, around 24 per cent of the rural population depended on these sources. The rural water supply in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa and Balochistan were not as well as around 46 per cent and 72 per cent of the people depended on water from wells, rivers or canals.

The report said that much of the country suffered from lack of potable water due to industrial waste and leaching from agricultural lands contaminates drinking water supplies.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 28^th, 2011.