Surging scarcity of water should be resolved immediately, suggests Mian Zahid Hussain.

Chairman of National Business Group Pakistan, President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum, and All Karachi Industrial Alliance and Former Provincial Minister Mian Zahid Hussain on June 20 said the country is facing a scarcity of water but the authorities seem oblivious to this important issue.

The prices of wheat and other agricultural commodities are constantly rising in the international market while local farmers are not getting water which is destroying their economy and reducing crop production, he said.

Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that lack of water is killing a large number of livestock and soon it will start damaging industrial production.

He said that the infamous tanker mafia is also taking full advantage of the water shortages and the price of water has been increased by three to four hundred percent in different cities including Islamabad which has increased the financial pressure on the people.

Mian Zahid Hussain said that international organizations have been warning Pakistan for decades about a famine in 2025. The per capita availability of water has been reduced from 5660 cubic meters in 1951 to 908 cubic meters now but no government has made serious efforts to develop water resources and save water but has set a record of mismanagement.

Water worth 20 billion dollars falls into the sea every year but no attempt has been made to save the water.

The business leader said that not a single political party in the country is serious about the...