LAHORE – While stressing the judicious use of available water resources in the country, Punjab Agriculture Minister Malik Nouman Ahmad Langrial said on Saturday that Pakistan was ranked at 7th place among the countries which are facing water scarcity.
The minister said that during the early days of Pakistan, every person had 5 to 6 thousand cubic meter water available to him, which has now dwindled to one thousand cubic meters now. And till 2025, it will further reduce to 800 cubic meter per person, which is an alarming situation.
Pakistan utilises 93 percent of its water for agriculture and the remaining 7pc is used for other purposes. The Agriculture Minister said that the department was encouraging drip irrigation under the on-going Punjab Irrigated-Agriculture Productivity Improvement Project (PIPIP) to overcome the scarcity of water. Under the project, Agriculture Department is installing drip and sprinkler irrigation system across the province.
Drip irrigation system is suitable for crop cultivation when canal or rainwater is not enough for conventional irrigation methods.
This technology, so far, has been adopted by many farmers across the Punjab province owing to acute shortage of river water and limited rains.
Keeping in view its high efficiency in conserving water, increasing per acre yield and reducing the cost of cultivation, there is a need to create awareness among farmers about the drip irrigation system. With this technology, farmers could save up to 60pc of electricity and diesel costs, augmenting their per acre yield by 100pc. It is a need of the hour that modern resource conservation technologies are adopted, such as drip irrigation, to cope with the situation of water scarcity in the coming years.
The minister said that there was a great need for launching an awareness campaign for conserving water. Water saving is a need of the hour, as in the next century, wars would be fought over water.
Drip irrigation and High-Efficiency Irrigation System installation could help a lot in saving available water.
