HYDERABAD: Unless heal­thy environment is ensured, people would keep suffering from diff­er­ent ailments. This was sta­t­ed by Sindh Minister for Envi­r­on­ment, Livestock and Fish­e­ries Mohammad Ali Malkani on Tuesday.

Everyone should play his/her role for a clean environment, he said while speaking at a seminar organised by the Sindh Environ­mental Protection Age­ncy (Sepa) at a local hotel here. He said Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zar­dari was a young and educated leader, and was aware of the issues confronting the environment. Bilawal was taking keen interest in those issues and the PPP would keep playing its due role for making Pakistan prosperous and healthy, he added.

The minister said the government was making all-out efforts to overcome environmental pollution, but the entire civil society should also come forward to play its role.

It’s an irony that people were concerned about cleanliness of their houses, but they threw garbage out on the streets, which needed to be given serious attention. If the environmental issues were not taken seriously, problems would increase, he warned.

He said people should ensure that environment in and around their localities was clean and free of all kinds of pollution. Such seminars, he said, would be organised in schools, colleges and rural areas to disseminate information about environmental issues and to educate people about them.

He said rural population usually depended on groundwater for drinking purposes, but analysis of such water revealed that it carried higher values of lead, which was harmful for health.

The government was analysing water samples and creating awareness about it, he said.

One thing was clear that the government alone could not do anything and society as a whole would have to play its role in the larger interest of the community, he observed.

Published in Dawn, November 22nd, 2017