ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Monday called for joint efforts to tackle water crises across the country, ARY News reported.

Qureshi said that Sindh and Balochistan have been facing water scarcity since long as the previous governments had neglected the issue.

He admitted that Pakistan Peoples Party leader Syed Khurshid Ahmed Shah’s claim about water crises in Sindh was authentic and said that Karachiites have been going through severe water crises for decades and compelled to buy water from tankers.

“Water scarcity is not the issue of any single province or the centre. It is a national issue and a national approach should be adopted to address this. It is our shared responsibility to tackle this issue,” he said calling for a national approach to resolve the water crises.

The FM said the federal government and the provincial governments need to collaborate and take steps to ensure that every citizen of the country has clean drinking water.

PM Imran issues directives for implementation of National Water Policy

Earlier, Prime Minister Imran Khan, on October 25, had emphasized upon following an integrated approach for conservation, storage, management and efficient utilization of the available water resources.

According to a statement released from his office, the prime minister had expressed these views while chairing first meeting of the National Water Council (NWC) held here at PM Office.

The PM lamented that past governments paid no attention to water-related issues in past so it is up to the PTI government to resolve the issue.

He underscored the need for chalking out a comprehensive roadmap, in consultation with provinces and other stakeholders, for the implementation of National Water Policy (NWP).

Imran maintained that NWC should serve as an effective platform to discuss and develop consensus among the stakeholders on all issues pertaining to water resource management.