It is simply shocking that a very large number of Pakistani cities, including urban centres, do not have safe drinking water for their citizens. Data presented in the national assembly by Minister for Science and Technology Shibli Faraz revealed that out of 29 cities where the Pakistan Council of Research of Water Resources (PCRWR) tested underground samples, more than 50 percent of water obtained from 20 cities was unsafe for drinking. Further breakdown of the data revealed even more alarming details; like the fact that 100 percent groundwater in at least three cities, Mirpurkhas, Nawabshah, and Gilgit, is unsafe. This news gives another ugly twist to our rather unceremonious journey from a water-abundant to a water-scarce country in the matter of just a few decades. And utter neglect of and disregard for our natural resources, which we were really blessed with, has characterised this journey. And it doesn’t seem as if we have learnt any lessons just yet even though agriculture has already started underperforming, as yet due to reasons not related to water, but soon enough water scarcity will drag output and earning further down. That means we will have to pay a lot more for our food than we do now because a lot more of it would have to be imported. And all this is happening just because we were not careful, and responsible, enough to protect the abundance in natural resources that we once enjoyed. Some initiatives of the past, which diverted official funds to this subject and took up a lot of time and got nowhere, should also be investigated. The Punjab government’s Saaf Pani Company, which was created in the time of Shahbaz Sharif as chief minister made quite a stir only to fizzle out and leave unanswered questions that the judiciary also had to take up later must also be looked into thoroughly to get an estimate of how the official machinery has also been misused in this regard. This government also made a lot of noise about water scarcity, and hence the need for many more dams, when it came to power but this, like a lot of other promises, was soon forgotten. There is still half the electoral cycle left and even now if it gets off the mark quickly it can greenlight the building of more dams and make investments in mega water conservation and purification projects in time to avoid outright catastrophe. But the way things are moving Pakistan can expect very bad news very soon because a lot of people no longer have safe water to drink. And unless checked, this trend will get worse and a lot more people will be left without any drinking water at all. Hopefully this shocking finding of the science and technology ministry will jolt the government into the kind of action that is very urgently needed. *