Water crisis had taken a serious turn with the beginning of hot summer days in all parts of Balochistan and Quetta valley is facing acute shortage of water for the past many decades and the successive Governments had failed to solve this problem to the satisfaction of the people.

Water is needed for commercial, domestic and agriculture use in the Valley. The existing supply falls short to meet the ever growing demand for fresh water.

Chief Minister Balochistan Jam Kamal has taken a serious notice of recent water crises in Quetta, directed WASA on taking emergency steps to resolve the issue.

The water crisis was confined to Quetta city and its sub-urban areas even during the winter. Now the protest is spreading to all areas from Naushki, Kharan, Washuk, Chagai, Mekran (including Gwadar), Sibi and Kachhi Plains.

Chief Minister Balochistan Jam Kamal takes notice of ongoing water crises and unviability of water and instructed WASA to take emergency measures using all the available resources to resolve the crises, according to a statement issued by government of Balochistan

Chief Minister has directed Deputy Commissioner Quetta to impose ban on using clean water in car washing service centers or any construction site.

Minister for PHE has called a special meeting on the direction of CM Balochistan to overview current water shortage crises, as secretary PHE, MD WASA, Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner Quetta will attend the meeting.

There are reports of water shortages in some parts of Central Balochistan where the efficiency of the Public Health Engineering Department had been questioned.

For the past 30 years there was a limited spending on the provision of providing clean drinking water to the people in all parts of Balochistan causing serious scarcity of water for domestic use.

All the civic agencies providing basic services and facilities to the people in this valley lacked competent officials, engineers and planners to tackle the problems of this capital city of Quetta which happened to be the seat of the Provincial Government also.

Thus the most pressing problems remained unattended as the decision-makers were found in search of most unscrupulous officials to serve them personally and defend their illegitimate interests instead of the people of this metropolis.

The performance of civic agencies in the provincial capital is zero by all standards and they failed to perform their duties to extend civic services to the people for decades. This was the main reason of water shortage or other civic problems, including drainage, overflowing gutters, garbage removal from the main population centre.

The population explosion and that too out of proportion is the main cause of water shortage.

We have suggested in these columns in recently that the Government should use fund to recycle water and use it for cleaning, producing fruits and vegetables and in some areas wheat.

The concept of waste water storage, management and treatment should be used so that bulk water should be used for agriculture, particularly producing fruits and vegetables or irrigating score of Quetta orchards in the valley.

The Government can store enough waste water for re-cycling for planting trees and making Quetta green and environment friendly.

Thus a substantial amount of this money should be first used for immediately storing and treating waste or sewer water for re-cycling and saving the precious resource from God Almighty for the benefit of the people without wasting it. By adopting trickle system,

the Government can plant and grow millions of trees in the Valley making it green and cool in hot summer. It will be a very big task. It will have massive recurring cost of operation to pump up water to 6000 feet above the sea level and crossing the big mountain range on its way. It should be assessed first that it is sustainable or not.