Everyday, everyone needs water, be they rich or poor. Not having access to safe drinking water and environmental sanitation is a courteous expression for a form of deprivation that threatens life, destroys opportunity and undermines human dignity.
Being without access to safe water means that people resort to ditches, rivers and lakes polluted with excrement or used by animals. It also means not having sufficient water and adequate sanitation to meet even the most basic human needs.
Pakistan is the sixth largest country in the world by population. As of 2005, it has a population of 153.4 million, which represents 2.36 percent of the world's population, with a density of more than 190 persons per square kilometer. Of the total annual water resources available to Pakistan, approximately 6 percent is used by the domestic and industrial sector - of which 30 to 40 percent gets wasted - and the remaining 94 percent is used for irrigation purposes.
The per capita water availability has dropped from 5600 cubic meter in 1952 to 1200 cubic meter in 2003 and if immediate action will not be taken, the per capita water availability would decrease to less than 1000 cubic meter by year 2012.
Water and sanitation is the neglected sector in Pakistan. Most of the households in Pakistan do not have access to safe drinking water lack adequate sanitation systems. The situation becomes even worst when considering safety levels in water supply and hygiene levels in the provision of sanitation facilities. The poor are the disadvantaged group in Pakistan.
These poor people, mostly living in rural areas or urban slums, are not only deprived of financial resources, but they also lack admittance to basic needs such as education, health, safe water supply and environmental sanitation facilities.
Clean Drinking Water Initiative (CDWI) by the federal government is an encouraging step to deliver safe drinking water. However, it is obvious that when we build a complex system we need more resources to keep that system operational. Same is the case with the water filtration plants, we need more resources to cope with operation and maintenance cost.
If the water filtration plants do not get proper and regular attention, the water from these filtration plants would be more contaminated and dangerous for health as of that collected earlier from other primary sources.
Continuing urbanisation, growing populations and increasing industrialisation have increased water consumption and correspondingly generating higher volumes of waste-water and solid-waste.
Untreated waste-water and poor solid-waste management are threats to human health and natural environment. Regrettably, the public and the private sectors, in developing countries including Pakistan, are giving insufficient attention to waste-water treatment and solid waste management; which is causing severe environmental and health problems.
The Human Development Report (2006) shows that life-saving investment in water and sanitation sector is dwarfed by military spending. In Ethiopia, the military budget is 10 times the Water and Sanitation (WATSAN) budget; India spends 8 times more of its national wealth on military budgets than on WATSAN, whereas, Pakistan spends 47 times more.
Diarrhoea claims some 450,000 lives annually in India - more than in any other country - and 118,000 in Pakistan. Pakistan ranks 28 places higher in the global league table for deaths from diarrhoea than in GDP per capita and India ranks 14 places higher. Of course, many factors are at play, but low levels of spending on water and sanitation surely contribute.
In case of Pakistan, which ranks low in human development index (ie HDI 134), access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation facilities are limited and there is a need for substantial spending in the water and sanitation sector.
As percentage of the GDP, in 2005-06 the government spent only 0.20 percent of GDP in the water and sanitation sector, as compared to only 0.12 percent in 2000-01; in the last six years, ie, after becoming a signatory to the United Nations' Millennium Declaration in the year 2000, the progress was just 0.08 percent of GDP.
Interestingly, there was only a change of 0.01 percent of GDP between 2000-01 and 2004-05. This demonstrates how much the public sector is committed to invest in the WATSAN sector.
The total public sector expenditure on water and sanitation has increased from Rs 4.49 billion in 2001-02 to Rs 10.3 billion in 2005-06, with a highest jump of Rs 3.8 billion in 2005-06. A major increase in expenditure on water and sanitation has been observed in Punjab followed by Balochistan, whereas the shares of Sindh and NWFP are decreasing over time.
Furthermore, the review of sectoral shares in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) expenditure shows a declining trend in government spending on water and sanitation sector over time. Government budgetary expenditure in the water and sanitation sector, as of 2000-01 was 3.68 percent of the total PRSP expenditure; which has decreased to 2.38 percent in 2005-06; with an improvement of 0.7 percentage points since 2004-05.
On the basis of calculated actual elasticity, for respective regions, at 7 percent constant annual GDP growth with constant provincial share in total public sector budgetary expenditure as of 2004-05, the projected access to safe drinking water source, between 2004-05 and 2014-15, shows that a total number of 5.72 million households (approximately 38.5 million people) lacked access to safe drinking water source in 2004-05.
Despite expected increase in coverage over time, by year 2015 a total number of 7.84 million households (approximately 52.8 million people) will still be deprived of safe drinking water in Pakistan. The current access to adequate sanitation shows that a total number of 7.52 million households (approximately 50.7 million people) lacked access to improved sanitation in 2004-05.
Again, despite progressive projected coverage, by year 2015 a total number of 6.34 million households (approximately 43.2 million people) will have no access to improved sanitation facility in Pakistan.
If we are committed to decrease poverty, to improve the health and living standard of our people, to increase the productivity levels and if social exclusions are to be minimised, then there is a desired need of coherent policy framework and investment in the Water and Sanitation sector, underlining the quantity and quality issues of water and environmental sanitation. There is more than enough water for domestic purposes, for agriculture and for industry. The problem is the sub-optimal use and inadequate storage capacity of available water resources.