close
Tuesday March 19, 2024

Special Senate committee urges Centre to resolve water crisis in Karachi

By Our Correspondent
February 22, 2019

A special committee of Senate on Thursday called upon the federal government to take concrete measures to resolve the lingering issue of water shortage in Karachi.

Senator Moula Bakhsh Chandio of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chaired the meeting of the Special Committee of Senate on Water Scarcity held at the office of the Sindh chief secretary.

The PPP senator said the federal government should make efforts to ensure the supply of water to Karachi as per its due share. Karachi should be treated as it was a mini-Pakistan and the federation should fulfil all its obligations in this regard, he added.

Chandio was of the view that any unrest in Karachi had its effects on the entire country; therefore, the federal government must not ignore the city. He asked the Centre to take serious steps to resolve the water crisis in the city.

The federation should end its parochial thinking to satisfy all its federating units, he asserted, adding that no federation could progress unless all its constituent units were satisfied. The PPP senator also lauded the Sindh chief minister for his efforts to undertake water supply schemes in the province.

The meeting took into consideration various issues related to violations of the Water Accord of 1991 and the federal government’s decisions to end important water schemes in the province. Officials of the Sindh government who attended the meeting complained that the Indus River System Authority had not been taking due corrective steps to resolve the issue of water scarcity in the province in view of the overall drought situation in the country.

The Senate special body also lamented that the scheme to resolve the issue of toxicity in the water of Manchar Lake of the province had not been implemented by the federal authorities concerned.

Senator Sassui Palijo of the PPP said she would submit a call-attention motion in the Senate on the issue of severe crisis of water in tail-end areas of Sindh, especially Thatta and Badin, which had been causing serious distress to growers. She added that she would also compile a report on the water issues of Sindh and submit it to the upper house of Parliament.