A Silent Disaster Looming in Peshawar

APP

Peshawar: “The groundwater of my village became heavier and unhealthy after the 2022 devastating flood, leaving me with no other option but to bring two gallon of clean drinking water from the Tehsil Municipal Administration’s (TMA) filter plant to avoid possible waterborne diseases,” Khayam Khan said while loading the water gallons on his bike.

Khayam, a 26-year-old resident of Mohib Banda village, used to bring two gallon of water on his motorcycle after the groundwater in his hometown became unhealthy following the devastating flood in the River Kabul last year that completely inundated low-laying areas of Nowshera district.

“I have only one demand from election candidates of all political parties: to provide us with clean drinking water. Any candidate who takes the practical step of installing a water filtration plant in my village is likely to attract the overwhelming support of the voters,” Khan added.

Like Khayam, the majority of residents of Mohib Banda and adjoining villages are bringing clean drinking water from Tehsil Pabbi, Nowshera and Peshawar due to unhealthy water.

Conservator of Forests former Chief Niaz Khan told that the water situation is going to get worse in Nowshera, Peshawar and Charsadda districts due to future floods in the River Kabul in addition to climate change and global warming.

With the current 30-day water storage capacity, some 207 million people would face a scarcity of water with less than 500 cubic metres available per person by 2025, Niaz added.

Former Chief further said that nearly 97 percent of the water was used for agriculture and the remaining 3 percent is utilised for domestic, industrial and other purposes. The insecurity keeps fluctuating due to mismanagement of water for political and meteorological reasons in the past.

Niaz Khan further said that the water level in the ground would further drop in the upcoming years due to the massive loss of water by the car washing centres.

Seven million acre feet of water are lost to the sea every year due to a lack of water reservoirs, Chief Khan mentioned.

China and India have built 22,000 and 4500 small, medium and big dams, respectively, but Pakistan has comparatively constructed a much smaller number of dams despite having huge hydroelectric potential stretching from Hamalya mountains to Karakuram and Hinduskash regions.

WAPDA authorities stated that besides the completion of the 108 MW Golen Gol dam in Chitral, accelerated work on the Mohmand dam of 800 MW with 1.293 MAF water storage capacity that, after completion, would supplement or irrigate 160,000 acres of land and about 18,237 acres of new land with annual benefits of Rs 2.23 billion.

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

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

Funded by the Asian Development Bank and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the KPCIP project is designed to counter climate change, deplete groundwater levels and increase waterborne health concerns.

Under the Swat Greater Water Supply Scheme, water from the Swat River would be treated and supplied to the residents of Mingora City. Streams and springs’ water would be channelled to a treatment plant near Choona in Abbottabad. Moreover, the treated water would be distributed through an extensive network of pipelines that would reach every household.