Stolen Versus Wasted Waters of Pakistan
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Journal of Political Studies, Vol. 26, Issue - 1, 2019, 19:30 Stolen versus Wasted Waters of Pakistan Prof. Dr. Umbreen Javaid and Hassan Iqbal Abstract Availability of per capita water is decreasing in Pakistan very fast. No serious effort has been done after the commissioning of Mangla and Tarbela dams long ago. The efficacy of these dams is also falling fast due to sedimentation. The construction of Kalabagh dam has been made politically controversial and Sindh, KPK and Baluchistan provinces are not even ready to consider the proposal. Successive Governments are dragging their feet on Diamer Bhasha dam due to its cost, long time required for completion and other logistic challenges. India, as upper riparian, is continuing with its designs to impede water flow towards Pakistan by building hydroelectric projects, and at some places even diverting water against the Indus Water Treaty 1960. Pakistan has already entered water stressed zone and experts are since long warning about this fact. It is said that the scarcity of water could prove to be a bigger threat than even the terrorism which Pakistan faced for almost 20 years. If it is politically Kalabagh dam is not feasible Pakistan should find alternatives, as there is no short cut solution to this problem. It has already been delayed for long and further delay shall cause clausal damages to economy, agriculture, industry, environment, ecology and above all national integration, as shortage of water is turning into inter provincial dispute. Keywords: Pakistan Water, Indus River, Kalabagh Dam, Diamer Bhasha Dam, IRSA, Stolen Water Introduction Ever since Pakistan came into existence, this has been the myth that our waters are being stolen by India, our neighboring country. It is a fact that India gave Pakistan a tough time with reference to flow of water in the rivers, particularly in Bias, Sutlej and Ravi, and later on, in Chenab and Jhelum also. India had a plan to stop waters of all the five rivers and destroy agriculture of Pakistan, even not to allow the drinking water at some point of time. However, with the negotiations and signing of Indus Water Treaty in 1960, Pakistan was able to save at least three rivers, Chenab, Jhelum and Indus. Under the Treaty Pakistan built two reservoirs, Mangla and Tarbela. These reservoirs were in a position to cater for the deficiency of water created by the handing over water rights of three rivers to India. This could be done only by building reservoirs and link canals between the rivers, and an even distribution of water across Pakistan. This system worked very well not only between India and Pakistan through Indus Water Treaty, but also worked very efficiently between the provinces through Water Accord, 1991. __________________________________ *Authors are Director, Centre for South Asian Studies and Dean Faculty of Social and Behavioral Science, University of the Punjab, Lahore and Commissioner, Punjab Information Commission, Lahore. Prof. Dr. Umbreen Javaid and Hassan Iqbal It is ironical that after Mangla (1967) and Tarbela (1976) reservoir, no new major water storage facility was built. Mangla reservoir was raised to some extent to store more water to a limited extent, but this could only cater for the reduction of storage due to sedimentation. These reservoirs are losing their capacity due to natural process of silting. Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA), the apex body responsible for planning, execution and maintaining the reservoirs is of the view that silting process has done colossal loss to the storage efficiency of Tarbela and Mangla dams. Therefore, it has suggested that the storage level for water in Tarbela be kept at 1386 feet as against previous level of 1380 feet. Similarly, level of Mangla may be kept at 10.42 against previous level of 10.62 feet (Yousafzai, September 30, 2017). Indus River System Authority (IRSA) is another body which was formed by the Government of Pakistan and is responsible for monitoring the flow of rivers, total available quantity of water and distribution among the provinces as per share determined through Water Accord of 1991. IRSA has also repeatedly pointed out to the Government, the urgency of building new reservoirs due to the fact that the actual storage capacity of both the major dams is declining fast and water availability is being reduced. Advisory Committee of IRSA has further cautioned that Provinces of Sindh and Punjab are likely to encounter 18 to 25% setback in flow of water to their agriculture fields (Yousafzai, September 30, 2017). This is not the first time that the Advisory Committee of IRSA has issued warning to the Government to build reservoirs for water on war footings. Such warnings have been issued to successive Governments by political leaders, engineers, WAPDA, academia, civil society and researchers, but somehow despite realization, necessity and availability of resources, reservoirs have not been built. An eminent Pakistani scientist, engineer and scholar, Dr. Shaukat Hussain, who studied and lived abroad, and is now settled in Australia, is of the view that Pakistan successfully built two large reservoirs at that time when there were no financial resources, no technical expertise, organization, machinery and equipment. It is strange when Pakistan has everything, it is not moving at all to build reservoirs essentially required for its survival (Personal communication, Dr Shaukat Hussain, June 2, 2018). The water situation is worsening in Pakistan with every passing day. This scenario has brought the provinces at a crossroad, where they are now actually fighting for water among each other. Provinces are doing it rightly as their demand is rising in the wake of increase of population. However, the available water is far short as compared to the past availability or present requirement. When we see there is scarcity of water at one point of time, so much so that provinces are fighting for a fair share of water, there are, on the other hand, flooding conditions and water is in such an abundance that it plays havoc with human population, settlements, animals and standing crops, causing loss of billions of rupees to the economy every now and then. This imbalance and fluctuation shows that we have not taken this issue seriously and this precious resource of water is being managed without long term planning. The attention, time and financial resources allocated for the proper management of water resources and 20 Stolen versus Wasted Waters of Pakistan development projects are insignificant in overall public sector development plans (PSDP) of the country. The low priority of water projects can be seen from the budget allocation of Government of Pakistan. In the year 2015-16 the budget for water sector was reduced from 60 billion to 30 billion, but the record shows that even out this hardly 23 billion was actually spent for the projects. During financial year 2016-17, allocation was 31.72 billion and only 24 billion were actually spent (Government of Pakistan, 2018). A comparison on the other side of border shows that Central Government of India keeps water projects on very high priority and during current year approved Rs 850 billion for major irrigation works, multi-purpose projects and four flood management schemes after assessing their techno-economic viability (TNN, June 8, 2018). Pakistan National Water Policy 2018 has also confirmed that Pakistan has become a water scarce country. It states that: “With rapidly growing population, Pakistan is heading towards a situation of water shortage and by corollary, a threat of food insecurity. Per capita surface water availability has declined from 5260 cubic meters per year in 1951 to around 1000 cubic meters in 2016. This quantity is likely to further drop to about 860 cubic meters by 2025 making our transition from „water stressed‟ to „water scarce‟ country” (Government of Pakistan, 2018). Although the researchers and other stakeholders have been warning time and again of continually depleting water resources, but at Government level it has been admitted for the first time that the country is heading towards scarcity of water. In 2016, Pakistan Council for Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) reported that Pakistan touched the "water stress line" in 1990 and crossed the "water scarcity line" in 2005 (PCRWR, 2016).With this persisting situation, Pakistan is likely to face an acute water shortage or a drought-like situation in the near future. A comparison of availability of water of some countries is given below. Table 1 Per Capita Water-Availability in Selected Countries (m3 ) Country 1955 1990 2025 China 4,597 2,427 1,818 Mexico 11,396 4,226 2,597 Philippines 13,507 5,173 3,072 Iraq 18,441 6,029 2,356 USA 14,934 9,913 7,695 Pakistan 2,490 1,672 837 Source: Population Action International, 1993 The comparison which was drawn in the year 1993 clearly indicates that Pakistan has entered into the phase of scarcity. This has been further substantiated by Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Water Resources in its National Policy document approved in 2018. According to world ranking by Water Resources Institute, Pakistan ranked as 21 Prof. Dr. Umbreen Javaid and Hassan Iqbal the 31st most water-stressed country in the world, with 4.31 baseline water stress score, which is very high (Water Resources Institute, December 12, 2013). International Monetary Fund (IMF), on the other hand, has ranked Pakistan the third in the world to be facing an acute shortage of water (Baloch, June 07, 2018). Similar are the conclusions of reports by the PCRWR and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) (PCRWR, 2016). "No person in Pakistan, whether from the north with its more than 5,000 glaciers, or from the south with its 'hyper deserts‟, will be immune to this scarcity," said Neil Buhne, UN humanitarian coordinator for Pakistan (Buhne, November 15, 2017).