lahore
Dr. Engr. Javed Younas Uppal, Chairman, Activity Committee, Institution of Engineers, Pakistan, in his lecture on Wednesday discussed current water disputes with India.
The lecture was attended by experts, govt. officials, renowned engineers, scientist and stake holders in the water and power sector.
Dr. Javed Younas Uppal said that water situation has reached an alarming level. On one hand we have acute shortage of water and on the other hand we have uncontrollable floods.
India controls water of our rivers. India is building dams in Kashmir inspite of the Indus water of the Indus water treaty.
The Government has no option to reach international levels and seek justice which is half award. India, on the other hand, he said was setting up a number of dams on Pakistani rivers. It would soon be in the capacity to regulate waters that were destined to reach Pakistan. He said due to strange reasons instead of building our own large scale water reservoirs, we call them threat to our integrity.
Captain (r) Syed Khalid Sajjad, Chairman Institution of Engineers, Pakistan, Lahore Centre said that in spite of being at the foot of the world’s largest sweet water reservoir that is Himalayas, Pakistan is at the verge of being declared as water scarce country. Huge lands are getting uncultivable. Water does not reach the tail ends of the canals. Water is lost in canals because of poor transmission seepage, illegal cuts and theft he observed.
He said the situation was the result of the decisions that were taken by ego centred politicians who exploited situations to gain political grounds and did not let storage dams built. The situation was also the result of the bureaucrats who took decisions without taking public interest into account. To avert the situation, all sections of the society, politicians, bureaucrats, commercial enterprises, engineers and technologists and people at large would have to pledge that they would leave their personal interests aside.