Build industrial effluent plants to protect fast-depleting fresh water reservoirs, govts urge.

KARACHI -- The National Forum for Environment and Health (NFEH) has urged the caretaker governments in the provinces to take immediate steps to speedily build industrial effluent treatment plants to protect freshwater reservoirs in the country as the past regimes unduly delayed such vital schemes, says a Press release. The demand to this effect was made by the NFEH President, Naeem Qureshi, in a statement issued on Monday to mark World Food Day 2023 having the theme: "Water is life, water is food. Leave no one behind". He said the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UNO had very aptly chosen the theme for this year's World Food Day to highlight the extreme vulnerabilities of underdeveloped countries including Pakistan where the safety of water reservoirs is constantly being threatened due to constant unchecked discharge of the industrial effluents. "Take for instance the example of Karachi as being the economic capital

and largest urban centre where its many industrial estates don't have the essential service of combined effluent treat plants," he said. Resultantly, there is a constant discharge of thousands of gallons of untreated industrial waste daily polluting our water bodies and marine ecosystems, he said. Qureshi said the situation had been so adverse that the relevant environmental officials didn't even have the latest scientifically gathered data on pollutants harming the water reservoirs serving the urban centres in the country. He lamented that past...