LOWER DIR/Chitral: Functions were arranged in Lower Dir and Chitral districts to mark the World Water Day on Friday, where speakers highlighted the need for conserving water sources and making available clean drinking water to all.

Speakers at the function held at a private school in Talash area of Lower Dir, pointed out that about 250,000 children died of consuming contaminated water each year in Pakistan.

Al-Khidmat Foundation (AKF) arranged the function.

Timergara assistant commissioner Dr Nida Iqbal, AKF project manager clean drinking water Naseeb Zada and others spoke.

Social and political activists, students and elders were in attendance.

Functions held in Dir, Chitral to mark World Water Day

The speakers said ‘water for peace’ had been declared the theme of the day this year as water scarcity often led to conflicts among individuals, communities and tribes. They said clean water reservoirs across the globe were rapidly decreasing, forcing large-scale migrations.

The speakers said about 2.2 billion people around the world and 22.1 million people in Pakistan did not have clean drinking water close to their homes. They pointed out that only 20 per cent of the total population had access to safe drinking water in the country.

They said many infectious diseases were caused due to consumption of contaminated water.

Meanwhile, World Water Day was observed in Chitral with the resolve to conserve the fabulous water resources in the district in the form of glaciers, which are known as ‘fresh water towers’.

GLOF-II project of United Nations Development Programme in collaboration with the ministry of climate change organised a function to mark the day.

Government officials, academia and conservationists spoke on the occasion, while school students highlighted the importance of water conservation through their speeches and artworks.

Stressing the need of water conservation, the speakers said the Holy Quran mentioned water as many as 63 times with special injunctions to conserve it for wellbeing of humanity.

They said water had the potential to make or mar the peace at local, regional and global levels, as many wars were sparked due to disputes over water.

The speakers stressed the need for water conservation by harvesting it in different ways to ensure its availability for irrigation and other purposes in Chitral, where a large quantity went to waste.

The meeting was told that keeping in view the importance of water availability, the GLOF-II project had completed 172 projects of irrigation channels in 24 most vulnerable valleys of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan during last two years.

Lower Chitral deputy commissioner Mohammad Imran Khan, director general Kalash Valley Development Authority Minhasuddin, divisional forest officer Abdul Majid, academia and others spoke.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2024