KARACHI: Experts on Saturday, the second day of the Pakistan Urban Forum South Asian Cities Conference, concentrated on the urban infrastructure and services of provinces and cities.

While presenting his paper on the state of urban water and sanitation sector in Sindh, Khalid M. Siddiqui said: `Unlike other provinces, the freshwater zone in Sindh is 17 per cent as it is largely dependant on surface water from the River Indus.

`Sindh, the most urbanised province of Pakistan, has a 46 million populationcurrently. Some 79pc of the population uses surface water while the rest uses ground water. But when 50pc of the population has no access to sewerage system their sewage is absorbed by the ground, contaminating soil water,` he said.

`The National Sanitation Policy and the Sindh Sanitation Strategy have been in place but the municipalities are not adhering to them. There is a bad water supply system in secondary cities, as solid waste is restricting the sewage from flowing,` he said.

About the challenges faced by the Sindh government, he said there were several such as overlapping of roles and responsibilities, weak coordination mechanisms with little revenue collection, dysfunctional water supply and sanitation schemes, an ageing infrastructure, poor water quality and water and sanitation not being demand-driven but actuated by political interests.

`So as the population of Sindh increases there is no sanitation facility matching that growth and you find people defecating out in the open.

Currently, some 10 million people out ofthe 46 million population don`t have toilets. Water is life but sanitation is dignity. Sanitation can come to the people by educating the young who can then spread the message. NGOs, too, can help,` he said.

`Then Karachi`s 20 million population has a demand for 800 MGD water though it only receives 635 MGD. So there is a shortfall of 165 MGD.

Meanwhile, only 445 MGD is filtered, he said while summing up the major issues faced by the province such as capacity constraints, resource constraints, sustainability of completed schemes, lack of coordination, lack of infrastructure mapping, resistance from sector institutions, etc.

Talking about the state of the urban water and sanitation sector in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Zubair Qureshi said the local governments in the province had been given the basic task of water supply. `We rely more on tube wells and wells in KP as we don`t have brackish water problems like the people in Sindh do,` he said.

`Surface water system, meanwhile, can be arranged from four possible loca-tions such as the Warsak, Tarbela, Barra and Munda Dams,` he pointed out.

About their sewerage system, he regretted to say that they were currently releasing it into their rivers. `This cannot continue for long as our canals have become sewers due to this,` he observed adding that KP did have three waste water treatment plants that had all fallen into abandonment. About their 800 to 1,000 tonnes of solid waste, he said, it was collected by some people on their own though there was no real system for it.

`There are some seven institutions in Peshawar for water and sanitation that are running on kind of ad hoc arrangements and have no long-term plans.

Tube wells are dug up and connected according to the demand for them, there is as such no planning for them,` he explained.

`We need to bring in proper professionals in our water and sanitation domains. We also have to match the needs of our people with corporate effectiveness. And once we have a workable model in Peshawar we will extend it to the other cities of KP,` he hoped.Throwing light on the situation analysis of infrastructure and services in Pakistan, Dr Nasir Javed said they had fallen into a vicious cycle of inefficiency leading to crisis. `Until you pay for the water and sanitation services, the system won`t improve and until it doesn`t improve people won`t want to pay for these things,` he said while also suggesting to develop and design a system with clarity of roles and responsibilities, ownership of ground water and categorisation of water uses such as trying not to wash your car with the best quality water fit for drinking. `Unless we leave the beaten track, we cannot be successful in coming up with something positive and useful,` he added.

JICA project Meanwhile, Mr Hamano Satoshi of Japan presented an overview of Japan International Cooperation Agency activities in the water sector with a focus on Punjab. `We want to share with you Japan`s experience through which we are supporting many ongoing projects in Pakistan. So we have the water opera-tors` model in Lahore for the purpose of substantial water supply, sewerage and drainage services that looks for increased revenue and decreased expenses,` he said.

`This can be achieved through water tariff revision, increasing the willingness to pay for the services provided, energy cost saving and improvement in performance of the water operators,` he said.

Mr Satoshi also said that they were starting a water operators` academy in Lahore supported by JICA that will include technical support of Japanese water works.

Irfan Tariq spoke about the water and sanitation policy initiatives taken by the climate change division where while appreciating the work he also recommended a need for the developments of a united national agenda for water and sanitation and hygiene.

Finally, Mr Masroor Ahmad briefed about the launch of a national water and sanitation sector study.

The conference being held at the Frere Hall lawns will conclude on Sunday.