The government on Wednesday launched 'National Drinking Water Policy' designed to ensure safe drinking water supply to the people by 2007. The draft policy was launched during a seminar on "Water and Culture" to mark the 'World Water Day', organised jointly by the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency and Unicef.
The policy provides a framework for addressing the key issues and challenges the country is facing in the provision of safe drinking water to the masses.
The strategic thrust of the policy is to specially target areas where women have to walk more than five kilometres to acquire water. All municipalities will adopt a demand-led approach in providing safe water, ensuring proper utilisation of the scarce resource.
However, the representatives from civil society organisations, during the presentation of their technical papers, pointed out flaws in the policy. They termed the policy as over ambitious and isolated not integrated. It is not clear as to what would be the mechanism of maintaining water quality.
"An allocation of Rs 10 billion will be disbursed to the provinces for installing water filtration plants in each union council," said Environment Secretary Khalid Latif Chaudhry. The environment ministry has also worked closely with both Unicef and the civil society partners at provincial and local levels, while drafting the policy, he added.
UNDP Assistant Resident Representative Arif Alauddin read the message of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, which stressed the need for involving women in all water-related development efforts. "In many cultures, including indigenous societies, women are the guardians of water," the statement said.
"They need to be able to participate more meaningfully in decision-making on how water is used and managed, so that their countries can make full use of their knowledge, skills and contributions", it added.
Unicef's Senior Programme Officer Ronald van Dijk said: "Provision of sufficient and safe water is a challenge with which the world leadership is faced today. It is extremely urgent to meet this challenge and find new answers since natural resources are limited and natural reserves are depleting. Our underground reserves will come to an end if we do not find sustainable answers to the ever increasing demand for water."