Apropos to the National Annual Plan 2019-20, Pakistan faces a serious water crisis as per capita water availability falls due to diminishing freshwater supplies and the exponentially increasing demands of the country’s burgeoning population.

During the last 71 years, the per capita availability of water in the country has come down to an alarming level of 935 cubic meters from 5,260 cubic meters. If an effective water storage strategy is not adopted, the per capita water availability in the country would decrease to 860 cubic meters by the year 2025.

It is not the first time that development and research organizations have alerted Pakistani authorities about an impending crisis, which some analysts say poses a bigger threat to the country than terrorism. Unfortunately, the country and the people suffered enormously for making the Kalabagh Dam a political issue, otherwise, that vital dam would have been completed by now.

The country would not have been facing the long hours of load shedding and unscheduled floods. Diamer-Bhasha Dam has already been delayed. The government is executing a number of medium-size dams in the four provinces and the government hopes that these dams along with Diamer-Bhasha Dam would be completed on schedule. For the purpose, the Government should set up a system to monitor the progress and to ensure that the project complete on time.

ANZA KANWAL,

Rawalpindi.