‘First National Water Policy soon’

LAHORE: Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) Chairman Lt General (retd) Muzammil Hussain has said that the first-ever National Water Policy would be launched soon to help overcome challenges.

He was talking to the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) President Malik Tahir Javed and other office bearers on Wednesday. WAPDA chairman said energy and food security was as essential as security of borders.

“The country is preserving only 10 percent of flowing water despite the fact that water resources are depleting,” he said, and added that Pakistan stood at 15th in the list of water deprived countries. He said the economic worth of water being wasted into the sea was around $ 14.5 billion.

“We have to plan today for our future, as the population of Pakistan will cross the 300 million mark by 2050,” the chairman said, and added that the government was working on various water and power projects out of which a number were nearing completion.

The LCCI president said unlike Pakistan, India took the right steps at appropriate times, and built a number of small and large size dams in the same period of time. “We kept hoping against hope and relying mostly on thermal-based power plants. Resultantly, we are suffering as a nation on account of not being able to generate sufficient and cheap electricity,” he said.