Being water stressed means Pakistan needs to be very careful in its usage of water for all purposes, including domestic and agriculture use.
“If we continue to act the way we are acting today, the forecast is that this will further drop to 500 cubic meters per person per year, making it (Pakistan) a water scarce country,” the managing director of the food and beverage company added.
Nestle fills around 20,000 bottles with groundwater in an hour at its Sheikhupura factory, which runs 24/7.
Nestle’s six drinking water facilities provide access to safe and clean drinking water to more than 60,000 people every day.
Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri, executive director, Sustainable Development and Policy Institute (SDPI), admitted to weak government policies when it came to water resources and its uses.
The SDPI official urged for agro-ecological zoning to save water, agriculture and to promote food security.
The PAD secretary said water was short because the Indus Basin System was designed at 16 percent cropping intensity, whereas currently it was over 135 percent.
“So the additional water requirements due to increased cropping intensities are being met through augmenting weakened out supplies, ground water pumping…and conservation of irrigation water at farm level through different water saving techniques,” he added.
Industry players, government officials, and other stakeholders agreed that the need was to promote better policies for preserving the precious resource to make the country food secure, as indeed 44 percent Pakistanis suffered from food insecurity.
Nestle in its endeavour to conserve water, apart from the AWS standards certification, and zero water targets at dairy factories, has also introduced drip irrigation, furrow irrigation, and sprinkler irrigation to its partner farmers.