LAHORE: Governor Chaudhry Sarwar says a Punjab Aab-i-Pak Authority is in the offing and the government is committed to make available clean drinking water to whole of Punjab population in the next five years.

The authority will look after the potable water-related issues including filtration plants and water schemes.

Speaking to media persons at a ceremony to hand over 100 sewing machines for women prisoners in Punjab jails to the IG Prisons at Governor’s House on Wednesday, he said the unsafe drinking water was playing havoc with people, causing death to some 1.1 million people annually.

He regretted that some 20 per cent of population in Punjab was suffering from water-borne diseases and in some cases of sampling eight out of 10 persons were being found infected with hepatitis.

Asserting that this needs to be stopped, he said he had urged the pharmaceutical companies’ owners to come forward and serve the humanity. On his request, he said, the pharmaceutical companies had committed to provide hepatitis medicines for 15,000 patients. He said the patients in jails and policemen in police lines would also be given medicines.

The governor said the Punjab government in collaboration with the WHO had started screening policemen across the province as well as establishing mobile clinics to screen people in far-flung areas.

The governor said the Sarwar Foundation (being run by his wife) had committed to set up “hunerga” in all women jails and added the women inmates would be provided with sewing machines. He said the foundation initially needed 500 sewing machines but the philanthropists committed 1,100 machines within three days of the announcement.

In the first phase, he said, the IG Prisons was being provided with 100 sewing machines and the remaining would reach prisons by the end of this month.

Published in Dawn, January 3rd, 2019