Expert says 25 sites identified for dams construction

PESHAWAR: The speakers at a function stressed the need for launching an awareness-raising campaign at the educational institutions to convince the young generation of the urgency to conserve water to overcome the looming crisis.

The suggestion was made at the Shoora-e-Hamdard monthly session. The title was "Water scarcity -- serious situation, immediate prevention and the need for increasing the water resources."

Hamdard Foundation Pakistan President Sadia Rashid had come from Karachi to attend the event. Shoora-e-Hamdard Speaker and noted cultural activist, Dr Salahuddin, presided over the programme.

Head of Department of Earth Sciences, Comsats University, Islamabad, Dr Muhammad Amjad Sabir, was the guest speaker. He said Allah had blessed Pakistan with water resources in abundance. "Rivers and underground water resources give the feeling that we can consume water for centuries if handled carefully," he pointed out.

Talking about the dams situation, Dr Muhammad Amjad Sabir said 25 various sites had been identified for construction of dams, asserting that Pakistan could build from 500 to 600 small dams. "We face a different type of problem. The politicians reject the opinions of the technical experts on the dams plan. This makes the issue controversial at the public level," he said while elaborating on his statement. The speaker said we would face no international hurdles if we constructed dams on the rivers which flow through Pakistan. "This will give us the benefits of storing water and generating electricity," he said and pointed out that water could be used for boosting the agriculture.

Dr Muhammad Amjad Sabir stressed the need for awareness-raising among the young generation on the issue and said we would have to sensitise the students at schools and other educational institutional institutions about conserving water by putting it to a judicious use to meet our needs.

The speaker said that it was lamentable that we were releasing 70 per cent water from rivers into the sea and we were unable to even feel that waste of a vital resource. Hamdard Foundation Pakistan President Sadia Rashid urged the participants to launch the struggle for conserving water from own homes and families. "We should inculcate in our children the habit of saving water by avoiding its unnecessary use," she stressed.

Shoora-e-Hamdard Speaker Dr Salahuddin said the next elected government should take as a priority the issue of the dwindling water resources. "The government should unveil both short and long-term plans to address this pressing issue," he added. The talks were followed by a question-answer session. There were observations that the funds were being raised for the construction of Bhasha-Diamer Dam at a very slow pace. One participant said it would take us 200 years to collect the amount required for the construction of the dam.