PCRWR project: 19 water testing labs to be set up

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) will establish as many as 19 more well-equipped water testing laboratories across Pakistan for provision of safe drinking water to the people. PCRWR has already established a well-equipped water testing laboratory at Sialkot with total cost of Rs14 million for providing advanced water testing facilities. Chairman PCRWR Dr Aslam Tahir said that 25 to 30% deaths in Pakistan are caused by diarrhoea. He said that now Pakistan has also been included in those 17 countries, which had been suffering from shortage of water.  He said that as many as 40 percent of the total patients admitted at the government hospitals across Pakistan had been suffering from the Water Born Diseases. Pakistan has only 10 per cent water storing capacity, while India has 33 per cent, China 77 per cent and Iran 33 per cent.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 3^rd, 2013.