Experts on Wednesday warned that water crisis hits the metropolitan in the wake of surging population, as industrial and residential requirements for the key resource are ever scaling up.
During a session at City-wide Partnership-a newly founded forum for sustainable water use and stewardship in the city, they blamed a rapid rise in population that triggered a fast urbanization to unleash social and environmental problems in future. They also said that water crisis in many areas has grown into the worst level.
The session was conducted by the WWF-Pakistan under its project titled "International Labour and Environmental Standards" (ILES)-application in Pakistan's Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). This six-year project funded by European Union is being implemented jointly with International Labour Organization (ILO) in Karachi, Lahore, Sialkot and Faisalabad.
The project primarily focuses on scaling down water and hazardous chemicals by between 15 percent and 20 per cent in the SMEs. It promotes a sustainable production and plans to mobilise and build capacity of more than 500 textile and leather industries in Pakistan.
Suniya Taimur, Coordinator City-wide Partnership, WWF-Pakistan, said that the forum will provide stakeholders with an opportunity to discuss the city's water related issues and extend technically sound and feasible solutions to the identified problems. "The WWF-Pakistan has already launched this forum in three other cities including Faisalabad, Lahore, and Sialkot," she added. Sana Baxamoosa, General Manager, Hisaar Foundation said that most of people in Karachi are faced with water shortages. She said that the lack of governance and intuitional capability left the city at the mercy of tanker mafia that also caused waster crisis. Similar forums were established on this subject in the past, which have done a 'commendable' work, she said, adding that "such platforms are very helpful in addressing water challenges".
Citywide partnership forum will help develop a common understanding amongst all stakeholders like business, government, civil society on the water risks to Karachi and to business, communities, and government. It will facilitate to establish an agreement on the key priority water risks, building on the situation analysis and water footprint studies conducted.
The WWF-Pakistan will be able to identify the mitigation options necessary to address the priority risks at the policy level in order to develop strategies and actions (eg, lobbying) to address those risks. The forum will act as a collective voice for the key changes that all stakeholders want to see on water management in Karachi.
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