Battling Water Scarcity One Trip at a Time

APP

Peshawar: As the world was celebrating International Water Day with the theme of “Water for Prosperity and Peace,” Shahjehan Khan, a 58-year-old taxi driver from Peshawar, was standing in line at a filter plant miles away from his home, patiently waiting for his turn to access fresh drinking water.

For Khan, this routine isn’t merely a matter of convenience but a vital necessity. His primary concern is ensuring that his family has access to clean water, a challenge exacerbated by the contamination of freshwater aquifers in his village due to the devastating floods of 2022.

Every day, Khan transports three gallons of clean drinking water from the plant to his home. This daily chore, alongside his demanding work as a taxi driver, serves as a constant reminder of the persistent challenges faced by communities in flood-hit regions of Pakistan.

For Khan and countless others like him, the struggle for access to clean water isn’t an occasional hardship but an everyday reality.

Known as Shah Gee by the local residents and relatives, the determined driver regularly made trips to Pabbi Tehsil, covering a five-kilometer distance during Ramazan to fill three gallons of clean drinking water from the Tehsil Municipal Administration Office to meet his family’s needs.

“The groundwater in my village had become unfit for drinking after the 2022 flash floods in the River Kabul,” he lamented as he loaded water gallons into his car.

“Leaving me with no other option but to bring clean drinking water from the TMA Office by spending my hard-earned money on fuel.”

His commitment to ensuring his family’s access to clean water despite the challenges reflects the resilience and determination of individuals facing water scarcity in Pakistan.

“The water in my village is so unhealthy that a person could hardly drink one glass during Sehri,” he said, adding that the issue was raised with local politicians and elected lawmakers on several occasions but has not been resolved so far.

“The provision of clean drinking water is a basic right of people and a responsibility of governments. I have only one demand of the PTI-led government: to provide us with clean drinking water,” he said.

Like Shah Gee, most of the residents of nearby villages, including Bara Banda, Aman Kot, Mohib Banda, Chowki Darab, and Dheri Mian Ishaq, are seen bringing potable water from Tehsil Pabbi, Nowshera, and Peshawar.

In the face of worsening water scarcity, particularly in Nowshera, Peshawar, and Charsadda districts, Gulzar Rehman, former Conservator of Forests KP, highlighted the persistent threat of floods in the Kabul and Swat Rivers due to climate change and global warming-induced weather challenges.

Rehman emphasized that climate change-induced weather patterns, such as droughts, heavy rains, and desertification, are already negatively impacting groundwater aquifers not only in the mentioned districts but across Pakistan.

He pointed out that globally, about 97 percent of liquid freshwater is stored in aquifers, which are crucial for sustaining life. These aquifers, tapped into on every continent, including Asia, provide drinking water to more than 1.5 billion people.

Despite Pakistan heavily relying on the Indus River, often termed the country’s lifeline, and boasting over 5,000 of the largest glaciers, water shortages continue to present serious challenges to various sectors like agriculture, livestock, and fish farming.

Agriculture alone consumes about 97 percent of the available water, leaving only 3 percent for domestic, industrial, and other purposes. The persistent insecurity regarding water availability is exacerbated by mismanagement issues within the water sector, he maintained.

According to the National Water Policy of 2018, per capita surface water availability has drastically declined over the years. In 1951, it stood at a commendable 5,260 cubic meters per year, but by 2016, it had plummeted to approximately 1000 cubic meters.

Projections indicate a further drop to around 860 cubic meters by 2025, signaling a distressing shift from water-stressed to water-scarce status for our nation.

According to the policy, a minimum of 1000 cubic meters per capita per year is necessary to avert the adverse effects on food security and public health caused by water scarcity. Urgent action is imperative to address this impending crisis, necessitating the swift development and effective management of our water resources.

This demands a concerted effort akin to a wartime mobilization, prioritizing the conservation, allocation, and sustainable utilization of water to safeguard our nation’s future.

Gulzar Rehman claimed that every year about 7 million acre feet of water were lost to the sea due to a lack of water reservoirs, adding that the water table is under threat due to the excessive use of clean drinking water by car washing centers, and demanded the regulation of such unchecked businesses to protect water aquifers for generations to come.

He claimed that China and India had built 22,000 and 4500 small, medium, and big dams, respectively, but Pakistan has comparatively constructed the least number of dams despite having huge hydroelectric potential stretching from the Himalaya mountains to the Karakoram and Hindukush regions.

According to Wapda officials, 108 MW of Golen Gol Dam in Chitral was completed, and work on Mohmand Dam, 800 MW with 1.293 MAF water storage capacity, was expedited.

On completion of the Mohmand dam on the River Swat, about 160,000 acres of land and about 18,237 acres of new land with annual benefits of Rs2.23 billion would be achieved.

Likewise, 300 million gallons of water per day will also be provided to Peshawar for drinking purposes, with benefits of Rs 957 million from Mohmand Dam.

To address problems of clean drinking and rehabilitate water supply schemes in major cities of KP, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Cities Improvement Project (KPCIP) was launched in Peshawar, Mardan, Kohat, Abbottabad, and Mingora Swat.

KPCIP was funded by the Asian Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The project was designed to counter climate change, depleting groundwater levels, and increasing waterborne health concerns.

Under the Swat Greater Water Supply Scheme, water from the Swat would be treated and supplied to the residents of Mingora City.

Additionally, streams and springs would channel water to a treatment plant near Choona in Abbottabad, and the treated water would be distributed through an extensive network of pipelines.

The experts underlined the need for the establishment of groundwater authorities at the provincial level and the regulation of the care washing stations to save the precious commodity for future generations.

The feature report was released by APP. It is reproduced by The PenPK.com.