LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Punjab organiser Chaudhry Sarwar has lamented that 82 per cent Pakistanis do not have clean drinking water and issued a “fact sheet” on Thursday about non-availability of clean drinking water for the masses.

Mr Sarwar said some 1.1 million people, including 250,000 children, die due to unsafe drinking water every year in the country. In Punjab, he said, 30 per cent population was falling prey to hepatitis A and B and other diseases.

He said every third Pakistani was compelled to drink “polluted water” and contracting gastro, typhoid, hepatitis, stomach and throat diseases.

He said there was 75 per cent contaminated potable water in Islamabad and 24 per cent arsenic water in Lahore -- both not safe for drinking.

He said Lahorites were compelled to drink unsafe water due to rusty and oxidised pipelines as well as out-of-order filters and several other reasons.

Instead of the government, he said, non-government organisations and philanthropists were installing filteration plants to provide safe drinking water to the masses. He said the rulers had failed to provide safe drinking water to people.

He said 75 per cent water in Islamabad and 87 per cent in Rawalpindi was not safe for drinking purposes. He said Punjab’s 36 per cent population was compelled to drink harmful water.

He said arsenic was also found in drinking water in Lahore, Multan, Sargodha, Kasur and Bahawalpur, which was taking toll on the poor masses’ lives, while the rulers were showing a complete senselessness.

The fact sheet says 99 per cent water discharged by industries and 92 per cent water being wasted in cities was going into rivers and the ocean. He said the industrial waste and sewage was being disposed of at six or seven points at the Ravi around Lahore.

The PTI leader said the vegetables being supplied to Lahorites were being grown with poisonous water, which was causing harmful effects on the human life.

He said the mixing of heavy metal in drinking water was also affecting children’s physical and mental health. In Lahore, he said, a project of installing 200 filtration plants was launched in 2002, but the incapable rulers had failed to implement this project till now.

He claimed that chlorination of over 300 tubewells out of a total 500 in the provincial capital was not done by Wasa.

“Due to non-chlorinated water, 30-year-old account officer Azhar Abbas of Walton, Lahore, was killed by brain-eating amoeba (Naegleria),” he said.

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2015

Opinion

Editorial

At breaking point
Updated 20 Jan, 2025

At breaking point

The country’s jails serve as monuments to bureaucratic paralysis rather than justice.
Lower growth
20 Jan, 2025

Lower growth

THE IMF has slightly marked down its previous growth forecast for Pakistan’s economy from 3.2pc to 3pc for the...
Nutrition challenge
20 Jan, 2025

Nutrition challenge

WHEN a country’s children go hungry, its future withers. In Pakistan, where over 40pc of children under five are...
Kurram conundrum
Updated 19 Jan, 2025

Kurram conundrum

If terrorists and sectarian groups — regardless of their confessional affiliations — had been neutralised earlier, we would not be at this juncture today.
EV policy
19 Jan, 2025

EV policy

IT is pleasantly surprising that the authorities are moving with such purpose to potentially revolutionise...
Varsity woes
19 Jan, 2025

Varsity woes

GIVEN that most bureaucrats in our country are not really known for contributions to pedagogical excellence, it ...