Climate change is a big concern for the whole world, right now. Rapidly changing weather patterns are wreaking havoc everywhere. All the hurricanes in the US, the heatwaves in Karachi or the nonseasonal weather patterns all across the globe.

Pakistan is one of the most affected areas in the world, due to climate change

The Global Climate Risk Index, rates Pakistan is eighth riskiest region in the world.

At the same time, big corporations who use up precious water in the rural regions of South Asia are destroying water resources and adding to the problem

These corporations are adding the already risky conditions that are prevalent due to the rapidly changing weather patterns.

Coca-Cola in India was recently forced to close their plant in northern province of Uttar Pradesh for extracting groundwater above legal limits and polluting the environment with toxic effluents. This was made possible after years of protests from villagers and activists forced the Indian officials to ask for the factory to be shut down.

One such example in Pakistan is the holy pond at the Katas Raj Temples in Kalar Kahar

It’s drying up gradually and its current situation is rather horrendous. Umayr Masud, a Facebook user, highlighted how rapidly the pond is deteriorating, despite its religious and cultural significance for the Hindus.

According to the Umayr’s post on Facebook, “the Bestway Cement Factory in the background did some bores to get water for the factory, as factories go there are 3 in the area and it seems they’ve dug deep inside and destroyed the water table. Katas Raj’s beautiful pond has dried down because the stream that used to fill it up is almost finished/gone. Interestingly, this happened almost a month back, no one got to know.”

The fact that there is no regulation whatsoever preventing the factory from their destruction of water resources is alarming

There needs to be serious investigation into the matter to confirm if this rapid destruction of the pond is indeed because of the factory.

Five months back, before it all started happening, this is what the pond looked like:

The post further mentions that the, “Hindu community considers the pond to be of sacred water and this did raise alarm, they have tried to contact people in the government and the factory to stop this. From the looks of it the factory is chugging along and they’d probably make a CSR project out of this to fill it up with a pipe while they hog the source. It is indeed depressing.”

Here’s the full post:

Cover Image Via: Nefer Sehgal / dawn.com