A nation-wide survey report on state of the drinking water supply and usage in Pakistan has suggested that only 19.4 percent people have confirmed access to clean and safe drinking water at their ends.
"A total of 77 percent of the rural population does not have government water supply provisions, where 54 percent have access to drinking water through handpumps or motorpumps, 5.8 percent through rivers, lakes, canals, 14.4 percent from fountains, 3 percent from wells and 1.3 percent use bottled water for drinking purposes," the report says.
The quantitative part of the report issued on Tuesday says that 88 percent population is in favour of including masses voices in the policy making process to make these policies deliverable.
The study report titled "By the people" has been conducted by The Network for Consumer Protection, which was submitted to the government earlier this month to incorporate public aspirations for National Drinking Water Policy (NDWP).
Qualitative part of the study says that majority of people, who were interviewed during the survey, declined to pay additional public service water charges until the government doesn't take initiatives to bring reforms in repairing infrastructure and governance system.
POLLUTED WATER: "About 59 percent population is consuming polluted drinking water, while 19.2 percent responded in the study with a reply that they are unaware of the fact that the drinking water they are consuming is safe or not.
The report is an outcome of more than 25 public consultation meetings held across the country, where more than 5000 citizens were contacted to provide input for NDWP, while around 2000 citizens responded by filling a scientific questionnaire.
Another fact unearthed through the study is that the 43.7 percent of the population do not practice to clean the drinking water at their homes, while 49.6 percent said that they practice methods to clean their water for drinking purposes.
The report says that amongst the respondents, who clean water for drinking purposes, 60 percent were using the method to boil it, while 10.1 percent using the filtration with cloth, 12.9 percent filter with other means, 1.2 percent use tablets, 5.5 use alum (Phatkari) and rest of the people use other methods to make the supplied water drinkable.
"More than 91 percent of the people were of the clear view that contaminated water supplied through various sources is a major source of different diseases and mainly affected segments of the population. Only 2.6 percent said this is not the cause, while 3 percent expressed that they don't know about the fact," the report said.
It was learnt through the survey that 64.2 per cent of the population were paying charges to access safe drinking water, while 28 percent said they do not pay any charges to get drinking water from any source.
Though, the findings and views reflected in the report does not represent 140 million population of the country but it claims that randomly conducted empirical survey is first of its kind that has recorded opinions of the people on state of drinking water in the country and its usage patterns.