Failure on water

It is no secret that Pakistan is a water-insecure country and that little has been done to address the crisis that is already upon us. A recent spate of reports – with the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources warning us that Pakistan will reach absolute water scarcity by 2025 and the IMF ranking us third among countries facing acute water shortages, finally seems to have brought some attention to the disaster we are about to face very soon. The Supreme Court has now taken suo motu notice of the issue, combining it with an ongoing case on the fate of the Kalabagh Dam, and the Wapda chief Muzzamil Hussain gave a briefing to the Senate Standing Committee on Water Resources on steps that can be taken to tackle the crisis. There need to be two prongs to any strategy in tackling the water issue. As both the Supreme Court and the Wapda chief noted, we need to improve our water storage capabilities. Hussain told the Senate that we only have a water storage reserve capacity of 50 days as compared to India’s 170 days and that we have only a fraction of the dams that India does. It is not at all clear, however, that a mega dam like the Kalabagh project is the answer. Apart from the environmental damage it will cause, it would not be advisable to go forward with a project that is strongly opposed by three provinces.

As it is, the increased incidence of droughts that will be caused by global climate change require us to go beyond constructing more dams. While some hydroelectric projects are necessary, especially if we want to convince the World Bank and International Court of Arbitration that India is blocking our access to water under the Indus Waters Treaty, our main focus should be on conservation and efficient use. Agriculture is the largest single consumer of water in the country and current water distribution practices do not best maximise use of water in this sector. Right now, water is distributed on the basis of land rather than need. This means water is wasted as it is given to lands that may not need as much water as others. The canal system that is used to distribute water loses large amounts of money and with agriculture untaxed, there are few resources to pay for its operations and maintenance. We have yet to implement a coherent environmental policy that accounts for the ravages of climate change and we have made few preparations for the increase in flooding and droughts that will follow. The Council of Common Interests has already approved a National Water Policy that introduces some reforms but there is still a long way to go before we can claim to have averted disaster.