Severe water shortage hits Rawalpindi.
Rawalpindi – Several areas of Rawalpindi have begun to reel under severe water shortage leaving people to run here and there in search of the basic need of life.
The water tanker owners have increased the price from Rs3,000 to Rs4,000 while doubling the miseries of the citizens.
Interestingly water is being supplied to homes by the tanker owners with a time span of four to five days that too after advance booking.
Similarly, the inhabitants of Rawalpindi and Chaklala cantonment boards are also living without water while the civic bodies have failed to supply the basic commodity to the residents, sparking protests and agitations.
“Dhama Syedan, Ali Town, Ziarat Baba Miran Mustafa and Khatana Village are without water for many months but WASA and local politicians failed to solve the issue,” said many residents while talking to The Nation.
Ziaullah Shah, the newly appointed WASA chairman and former PML-N MPA from Rawalpindi, said that the water shortage had become a big issue in the city and he would play his role in getting more water for the residents.
The situation is very bad in Rawalpindi and Chaklala cantonment boards.
The water situation is worst on the suburbs, which lack a proper water supply scheme.
This news was published in The Nation newspaper.

Although villagers are dependent on agriculture, 70 percent of the villagers in Querim do not have tap water and are fully dependant on tanker water which is supplied once every week.
Apart from water scarcity the village also faces poor road connectivity, increase in settlement of migrants and unavailability of mobile network.
The issue of water scarcity was taken up in every gram sabha of the Querim Village Panchayat and it was decided to supply water for the villagers through tankers.
Out of the seven wards only around 400 villagers in Karmale, Arla and some residents of Vangal area have tap water facility while the rest of the villagers get their water from tankers.
People wait to fetch water with pots, and sometimes, they are dismayed because after a long wait, they have to carry empty water pots back home because the PWD water tanker does not turn up.
Another problem the villagers face is poor road connectivity as most of the houses are situated in the centre of a hilly arecanut plantation.
No efforts have been made by the panchayat to improve the road connectivity in the village.
Out of the 1200 houses in the panchayat almost 75 percent residents do not have proper road access.
According to villagers around 70 residents get proper mobile network while rest of the residents do not have access to mobile connectivity.
According to Querim Village Panchayat sarpanch Suhas Gaude, the panchayat was constantly in touch with the PWD to resolve the water supply issue in the village.

Residents of village Bharutola are facing severe potable water crisis as the three wells along with the sole borewell have parched up leaving no scope for villagers to obtain drinking water.
The shortage of drinking water in the village has compelled villagers to travel long distance to obtain water.
The complaint filed in the session of Jan Sunvai held recently has also failed to provide some relief to villagers.
According to information, villagers of Bharutola are faced with serious problem of obtaining drinking water.
Reason behind the water scarcity is that four water resources in the village, including three wells and one bore well, have dried up.
The sole hand pump in the village is unable to cater to the needs of villagers as the water level has receded beyond the pipe line fitted inside the bore well.
With no alternate arrangement to fetch water, villagers are forced to travel long distance to obtain water in adjoining village by carrying water tumblers on bicycle and bullock-carts.
An application was handed over to the District Collector seeking some alternate arrangement to supply drinking water in the village.
After the complaint pertaining to dearth of drinking water came to fore in Jan Sunvai, this correspondent visited the village and found that members of villagers are faced with drinking water crisis.
“With no attention given by the administration, we are forced to travel around 7 kilometres to obtain water from river.” The villagers are tired of covering long distance for water for daily routine work.

How to play the world’s water shortage.
Investors can follow the lead from Dr Michael Burray, the GFC-predicting protagonist from Michael Lewis’s The Big Short, and invest in one of the world’s most urgent themes: water.
In China, 80 per cent of rivers are too toxic for fish; in the United States, Californian authorities spend about $US20 billion annually on their water supply and here in Australia, there is $30 billion water trading market, thanks to agricultural reforms in the mid-2000’s.
Share on Facebook SHARE Share on Twitter TWEET Link Water scarcity is proving a lucrative global theme, combining a demographic trend with the threat of climate change.
$US7.5 trillion ($10.1 trillion) is the projected global spend in water infrastructure over the next 15 years, according to the World Economic Forum, and as international regulation is tightened, $US300 billion is slated to address water pollution by China’s Water 10 plan.
"And businesses are focused on things from smart irrigation to maintaining drinking quality to water distribution efficiency and huge dam engineering projects, mean there are hundreds of entry points for investors."
Ways to invest Impax has invested $2.9 billion into around 40 water global water stocks, largely focused on infrastructure and water utility plays, and since the fund’s inception in 2009 has returned 13.4 per cent to shareholders.
Mr Simms points to the likes of French multinational SUEZ, American Danahar Corporation and Swiss Georg Fischer as large and diversified firms capitalising on the voracious demand for water infrastructure and new technologies.
Brisbane-based Blue Sky Alternative Investment fund has $2.7 billion under management and actively trades water rights in the Murray Darling.
"Anything that looks to contribute solutions to China’s extremely serious water issues is likely to receive investor interest," says Tom King, chief investment officer of Nanuk Asset Management.

El-Rufai Addresses Water Scarcity, Commissions Treatment Plant.
The Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has commissioned the 150 Million litres per day Zaria water treatment plant, aimed at addressing the perennial water scarcity in Zaria and environs which date back more than 40 years ago.
Speaking at the ceremony, El-Rufai said the Zaria water project is the beginning of a new phase in water works development and renovation in the state, as other water works scattered all across the state will continue to receive the attention of government.
During his election Campaign in 2015, Governor El-Rufai promised to address the problem of water scarcity in Zaria if elected into office and after two years in office, that promise has been realised with the completion of the 150 million litres per day water treatment plant.
The Zaria water project was initiated in 2008 by the Namadi Sambo administration at the cost of N15billion, it was later reviewed by the El-Rufai administration to N24billion due to expansion in design and other exigencies.
Beyond the broader goal of ensuring availability of water for domestic and industrial purposes for residents of Zaria and environs, the Kaduna state government is hoping that the completion of the Water Project will boost agriculture in eight Local Government Areas through irrigation farming.

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo and his predecessor, Namadi Sambo, on Saturday disagreed over the role played by present and past Kaduna governors in a water project in Zaria, commissioned by Mr. Osinbajo.
Represented at the event by the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress, John Oyegun, the acting president had claimed the project had lingered for 16 years but was speedily completed by Governor Nasir El-Rufai in two years.
But the News Agency of Nigeria reported that the 150 million liters per day multi-billion water project was initiated by Mr. Sambo in 2008 when he was governor of the north western state.
“I am glad on behalf of the party, it took an APC governor just two years to complete a project that has been in slumber for over 16 solid years,” he was quoted by NAN as saying.
But Mr. Sambo struck back in his speech, telling the audience that while Mr. E-Rufai’s effort was commendable, the project had not gone beyond where he left it seven years ago.
He urged the benefiting communities to make judicious use of the project and to protect it against vandalism.
The first part of the project inaugurated by Mr. Osinbajo would supply water to Zaria and Sabongari Local Government Areas.
NAN reports that, when fully completed, the Zaria water supply project would also be extended to Giwa, Kudan, Makarfi, Soba and Kubau local government areas.
“This water treatment plant is an important component of the Zaria water supply expansion project that Kaduna State Government is executing with the support of Federal Government, AFDB, IDB,” he said.
The governor explained that the state government funded the construction of the new water plant, transmission mains and service reservoirs, and also rehabilitated and extended the distribution network.

Charles Fishman and Seth Siegel know a thing or two about water. Fishman is author of The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water. Siegel wrote Let There Be Water: Israel’s Solution for a Water-Starved World. They were among the 200 people interested in water issues who spent two days in Milwaukee this week. The draw was The Water Council’s 10th annual summit at which security was the theme. Charles Fishman says cyber security does not get a lot of attention in the world of water, but should. “If hackers can hack the CIA. If hackers can steal every personnel record of every federal employee of the United States, Taking down a water utility plant or treatment plant would not be a problem,” Fishman says. He says the cyber risk runs deep. “Lots of people have water technology that has digital elements to it and those are connected to the water utility in your town. So there is vulnerability way outside the fence line of a water treatment plant,” Fishman says. Climate change, he says, is increasingly felt in water. “That means that in Norfolk Virginia and in Miami Beach and also in Bangladesh, when there’s huge precipitation the flooding is worse than it otherwise would be,” Fishman says. The U.S. military is not standing by idly. “All the naval bases in…

Water woes of Guruvayur station ends; 1 lakh litres of water daily.
Guruvayur: The hotline connection of the Water Authority has been renewed bringing relief to the water problem prevailing in the Guruvayur railway station.
The Water Authority will provide 1 lakh litre of water to the Guruvayur Railway Station daily.
Officials of the Water Authority reached the Guruvayur railway station on Thursday and operated the hotline pump house.
The toilets in the station were also re-opened and all tanks were filled up with water.
The bogies lying in the station were also filled with water and the seats and the station were washed and cleaned.
Water scarcity has been witnessed in the Guruvayur station for quite a long time.
The water woes of the Guruvayur station was resolved based on a Mathrubhumi report.
The station needs atleast 1 lakh litres of water and presently water is being transported from Ernakulam by a private agency with double the rate.
With Mathrubhumi highlighting the news, it was decided to renew the Water Authority project.

© kd Without water, there is no life.
Human beings die after a few days without drinking.
Yet even though three-quarters of the earth’s surface is covered with water, hundreds of millions of people lack sufficient or clean drinking water.
People who have only very little water tend to use it only for drinking and cooking.
Where irrigation is available, people benefit.
It is no surprise that this precious resource has always been the cause of conflicts – and things will probably get worse in the future.
“Third-world products” such as cotton, palm oil or cacao also require a lot of water.
In order to rise to the global responsibility, humanity will do well to consider demands the UN has made.
Groundwater resources must be protected.
In short, we not only need a global energy transition, but a water transition as well.

Himachal to harvest snow to meet water scarcity.
Feeling the heat of global warming, the Himachal Pradesh government is contemplating to go for snow harvesting as a solution to deal with water scarcity in high-altitude areas.
Official sources said the State Council for Science, Technology and Environment in HP will shortly start a pilot study to develop technology for snow harvesting with SASE (Centre for Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment), Manali.
The area picked up for the pilot study is Pooh valley of tribal Kinnaur district of HP.
Pooh is located at an altitude of 2,662 metres and has apple orchards.
So much that locals had to engage water tankers for irrigating apple plants last year.
We will start working on it as soon as we get the written sanction,” Kunal Satyarthi, Joint Member Secretary of the state Council for Science Technology and Environment, HP, told The Statesman.
We will build structures to trap snow.
So far, the state, which is increasingly witness to melting glaciers and drying up water sources, has so far focused much on rainwater harvesting.
However, the tribal areas of the state, including Kinnaur and cold desert of Lahaul and Spiti, receive much snow every year that melts without put to any use.