Post 18th Amendment Policy Makers Meeting on Drinking Water Policy at Federal Level

‘Household Water Treatment to be made part of the provincial drinking water policy agreed upon’, said Barhamand Khan, Sup Engineer Public Health Engineering Department, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, at a federal level meeting on provincial policy here at SDPI, on Thursday.

Shafqat Kakakhel, Member of Board of Governors Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad conducted the proceedings. Mr. Ramchand, Director Technical,
Public Health Engineering Department, Government of Sindh, Mr. Abdul Qayyum, Director Finance, Public Health Engineering Department, Government of Baluchistan. Barhamand Khan, S. Engineer, Public Health Engineering Department, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Latif Awan of Ministry of Environment and Ms. Mome Saleem of SDPI were among the speakers of the seminar.

Shafqat Kakakhel started off by giving a talk on the importance of Household Water Treatments in a country like Pakistan that is facing all sorts of energy and food crises. He said that there is a dire need of incorporating HWTs in the Action Plan of the Provinces regarding Drinking Water Policy. Talking about certain HWTs, he said that safe water has become the most important need for Pakistan today, as the basic health of population depends on having access to safe drinking water. He said that all sorts of waste and contamination have been a result of insufficient disposal of waste.

Talking about general health, he showed concern on having an exponential increase in water-borne diseases. He said that 54-84 billion rupees annually are spent on the health budget and fairly less could be spent on HWTs that could in turn bear benefits for the general population suffering from all sorts of waterborne diseases and malnutrition. He suggested that there is a need for active remedial measures and public sector has to devote more resources so that provinces may have better resources to counter this problem. He said that SDPI invited the provincial delegates to share their experience and the hurdles they may be encountering in this regard.

While presenting the policy brief, Ms. Mome Saleem gave her views on how certain household water treatments could be very cost effective and energy efficient as well, like SODIS, that would only use sun rays and is very practicable in remote areas and also the flood affected areas where the water has become contaminated and waterborne diseases are emerging as a consequence. She shared the example of a pilot project in Faisalabad that reduced the incidence of diarrhea to 39% in that locality; hence household water treatments can prove to be beneficial. She also stressed that universities should come in and students and researchers should take up such researches so that proper treatment methods in different conditions can be identified, as there can be many methods of treatment of water according to the cultural and ecological conditions. She shared the objectives of the SODIS campaign and its outcomes. She requested the policy makers to take up Household Water Treatments as a part of their provincial action plan.

Mr. Ramchand from Sindh approved of the Household Water Treatments and recommended them. He also shared his views about the basic problems of water in Sindh. He told the participants that there is lack of access to drinking water in many parts of Sindh, leave alone safe drinking water. He recommended that there needs to be water pipelines in order to provide water to the people and standards should be maintained to make it safe for the purpose of drinking.

Mr. Abdul Qayyum from Baluchistan said that Baluchistan has a very scattered population having 19 people per kilometer. He said that providing safe drinking water to people is the responsibility of the provincial government. He further explained that the strategy and action plan on drinking water policy is now the responsibility of the provinces. Talking about the problems of Baluchistan , he said that sometimes the sources of water are in a different area and the beneficiaries are in different districts which make it difficult to maintain the standards. He suggested that there is a need for powerful media campaigns in this regard and also training of general public and also through dissemination of IEC material as awareness needs to be created.

Mr. Barhamand Khan from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said that the 18th amendment had no impact on Action Plan for drinking water as Public Health Engineering was already a devolved function and only on policy level, Ministry of Environment focused on it. He said that in KPK, policies are under formulation in this regard and there will be a defined strategy in order to implement Safe Drinking Water Policy and appropriate technologies including Household Water Treatments would be would be incorporated that could be culturally acceptable and practicable. He told the panel that with the collaboration of UNICEF and WFP, the policy would be submitted to the cabinet. He expressed that the main function would be the provision of safe drinking water to the villages of KPK.

During the course of discussion, certain Household Water Treatment methods came under consideration including boiling, using tablets, Nadi filter, SODIS and other such methods. A certain number of issues were raised about whether the SODIS method of HWT can effectively remove microbial pollutants and what is its effect on turbidity. It was explained that SODIS if cannot purify the water to complete extent but it could manage to reduce the amount of micro-organisms to certain levels, hence it is very usable and accessible for those people who live in the remote areas of Pakistan and who do not have ample resources to go for other options such as boiling or using tablets, as they would not be easily available to them. Certain other concerns regarding the use of plastic bottles and the carsogenic elements being released by them in water also came into question. It was clarified that plastic bottles do not release the carsogenic materials into water unless the temperature gets above 70 degree celcius.

It was concluded in the end of discussion that awareness needs to be created on the grass roots levels and there needs to be an inclusion of information on HWTs in the syllabus at the school level, imam from the mosques can be taken on board who would suggest to people about the benefits of having clean drinking water so they could be convinced to adopt safe drinking water practices. It was also recommended that there needs to be a Public Health Model and that Mass Media needs to be involved in the advocacy campaigns so the message could reach higher populations. It was also recommended that local government institutions also need to be taken on board. It was also recommended to the participants from the government that they should benefit from the upcoming Water and Sanitation Conference in Srilanka, held under World Bank’s South Asia Sanitary Program.