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Water conservation workshop held in Chitral

By Zahiruddin

CHITRAL: In a sensitization seminar held under the aegis of Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) here on Wednesday, the speakers and participants put forward their recommendations for water conservation and development. Jointly held by AKRSP and UNDP, the seminar was attended by members of civil society organizations and specialized bodies offering civic services and elites of the city. The project director Engineer Samar Gul and manager Sahib Nabi Khan said that the mass awareness for water conservation and development project had been launched to collect and document the existing knowledge in water conservation in agriculture, industries and household use. They said that the water resources shrinking rapidly which can be gauged from the fact that the five thousand cubic metre water per person at the time of independence has dropped to only one thousand cubic metre. They warned that if the conservation of water resources is not taken in its right earnestness, then it will take a new turn leading to scarcity of water. They said that the project was also aimed at capacity building of the stakeholders at primary tiers and sensitization of policy makers apart from conducting research about best practices and improvement of water conservation in grass root level. Regarding the approach adopted by the project, they enumerated the steps of documentation of best practices, research, linkages with stakeholders and use of mass media to disseminate the knowledge. They said that the three-year project will go a long way in persuading the water consumers to conserve the commodity which is fading away with each passing day. On this occasion, the regional programme manager of AKRSP Engineer Sardar Ayub and local intellectual Dr. Inayatullah Faizi presented their ideas in length about the customary practices in water conservation and the ways to modernize them on scientific lines. On this occasion, the shields of commendation were awarded to Dr. Inayatullah Faizi, and Engineer Sardar Ayub and Imtiaz Ahmed of AKRSP for their distinguished services for conservation of water efforts.