‘Law on anvil to prevent water wastage in country’

RAWALPINDI: For the last six months the government besides working on many other major issues has laid great importance on water improvement for which purpose several plans would be enforced in letter and spirit.

This was stated by chairman, Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa), Mohammad Arif Abbasi while speaking at an event organised to commemorate World Water Day by the civic body. The function was also attended by Managing Director, Wasa, Mohammad Tanvir whereas chief organiser of PTI, Saifullah Khan graced the occasion as chief guest.

The chairman told that the government is working to bring out a legislation to prevent water wastage. Moreover, we have decided to install meters on commercial units for using underground water.

Similarly, the big commercial units would be brought into the network of water tariff besides all private housing societies. It would result in generating more revenue for Wasa, which would improve its economical position as well. In the past, no governments as well as authorities of Wasa had realised on bringing commercial units and private housing societies in network of water tariff, which cause huge loss to this agency, resulting in financial crunch.

Similarly, Wasa is seriously considering to impose ban on washing vehicles with clean water. Apart from it measures are being taken to harvest rain water . We are considering to include option of harvesting rain water in building plan for which legislation would be brought out.

Besides enforcing this small schemes for increasing resources, the government is also giving priority on construction of small and big dams to improve the overall water situation and avert its crisis in future.

Addressing the participants, Managing Director, Mohammad Tanvir threw light on the importance of water and stressed upon the people for using it with care and responsibility. He also presented various suggestions for saving water from wastage.

Our correspondent adds from Sialkot: Punjab Minister for Environment Protection Bao Muhammad Rizwan has urged the people not to waste water as it is the most precious resource of nature.

He said this while addressing a ceremony held in connection with the World Water Day under the auspicious of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Pakistan, Environment Protection Department (EPD) Sialkot and a private university here on Friday.

Punjab Minister Bao Muhammad Rizwan said that it was the most important duty of every citizen to play his role to effectively deal with the most pressing issues like climate change and wastage of water. He also briefed about the measures taken by the provincial government in order to cope with climate changes and water scarcity.

He suggested that we could preserve the wealth of water by cutting down its unnecessary usage in daily life. EPD Deputy Director Ijaz Alvi said that it was a time to preserve water as our country was on the verge of shortage of water. Adeel Younas said that awareness among youngsters, particularly the students, about the threats of scarcity of water was essential in order to teach them how to conserve our day by day depleting water resources. Prof Dr Ijaz A Qureshi said that academic institutions could play great role in raising environmental awareness among the students and the society.