LAHORE : Safe Water Initiative “PAANI” enables access to clean drinking water for over 750,000 people across Pakistan.
Water isn't just indispensable to life, it is life itself; fundamental to the existence and survival of all life-forms, one cannot quantify its criticality. However, if the very same water becomes contaminated it likely becomes a birthing ground for a plethora of waterborne diseases that can be deadly for those who utilize it. Access to clean drinking water is a global problem and as a country hosting the sixth largest population in the world, Pakistan also faces these challenges.
According to UNICEF Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH), water-related diseases are costing the economy around Rs 300 million a day. This is a phenomenal economic loss by any measure, to add to the human suffering of disease and death. Children who are our biggest future resource are the most at risk; the UN Commission on Sustainable Development says that in Pakistan, 200,000 children a year die from diarrheal diseases alone.
Under such dire circumstances, the need for clean water is being answered by initiatives such as “PAANI”. PAANI is bringing together corporate entities like CCI , sixth biggest bottler of The Coca-Cola Company, with social organizations such as WWF to set up water filtration plants to provide clean and drinkable water to the people of Pakistan. The first plant was installed in Malir Karachi in 2014 and to date, CCI and WWF in collaboraiton have installed 24 filtration plants, making available clean water to more than 750,000 people across Pakistan.
These plants have an individual capacity of producing over 2,000 liters of clean drinkable water per hour, each serving a community of over 20,000 people per day. The plants make use of leading water treatment technologies such as reverse osmosis and ultrafiltration, both of which help in the production of ultra-pure, clean and potable water. According to a health impact study conducted by WWF, a 10-15% decrease in the disease outbreak in beneficiary communities has been recorded. Such initiatives are imperative to help Pakistan come out of the unsafe water crisis that it currently finds itself in.
CCI, which ranks sixth in terms of sales volume in the Coca-Cola system, produces, sells and distributes carbonated and non-carbonated beverages consisting of The Coca-Cola Company brands. Pakistan having first started bottling operations in 1996, came under the roof of CCI in 2008.
CCI Pakistan has six bottling plants, which makes the country the second largest operational territory for the company. CCI Pakistan stays committed to being a responsible and vigorous corporate citizen. It aims at continual efforts towards expanding the social footprint of ongoing initiatives, like PAANI, and also to initiate similar projects in the near future.