ISLAMABAD - Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry senior vice president Muhammad Naveed Malik Thursday said that water shortage was emerging as a serious national issue of the country and policymakers should focus on urgent construction of more water dams in the country to cope with the rising water crisis.

He was addressing a meeting of local traders. Former president of ICCI Baser Daud, Khalid Chaudhry, Zia Abbasi and others were present in the meeting.

Muhammad Naveed said that though the Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar has taken a suo motu notice of the issue but the matter could not be resolved unless urgent measures were taken by the government to build more water reservoirs in the country.  He said that Pakistan has so far constructed total 155 dams due to which it could store water for just 30 days. In comparison, India has built 5102 dams so far and it has the capacity to store water for 170 days. He said that due to lack of water reservoirs, large quantity of water was being wasted every year.

He said that Pakistan was using 90 percent of its water for agriculture but due to the heavy use of tube wells and water bores, the level of underground water was going down sharply. He cautioned that if no dams and water reservoirs were built on urgent basis, the country would soon face drought like situation.

ICCI acting president said that a campaign was running on social media for construction of Kalabagh dam and water reservoirs. He said that all patriotic people were supporting this issue as building Kalabagh, Bhasha and other dams was essential requirement of the country for its economic development.