Water distribution irritants

The meeting of advisory committee of Indus River System Authority (IRSA), held the other day to finalise a formula for water distribution among the federating units, needs to be seen against the backdrop of water shortage of between 35 and 40 percent that is likely to develop during the Rabi season.
A record fall in water inflow into the Indus, Kabul, Jhelum and Chenab rivers on the eve of Rabi sowing has put the Agriculture Ministry under tremendous pressure to scale down its wheat production target from 23.5 million tonnes to 23 million tonnes. However, an Agriculture Ministry official has informed Business Recorder that if the country receives a reasonable amount of rainfall during the sowing season, the wheat production target could still be easily achieved.
For the country to achieve self-sufficiency in wheat production, the official added, the target must be set well above 24 million tonnes, though. Meanwhile, according to one estimate, there is going to be a shortfall of around 8 Maf of water during the coming Rabi season, because water availability is likely to be around 26 Maf against the minimum requirement of 34 Maf. It will be recalled that the country had experienced water shortage of 23 percent during the last Rabi season, which was one of the major factors responsible for depriving Pakistan of its wheat production target of 24 million tonnes.
Analysts believe that if water shortage hits the wheat crop for the second consecutive year, it will seriously undermine the government's efforts to achieve self-sufficiency in wheat. Other crops likely to be affected by the water shortage, include lentil, oilseed and fodder. At a technical committee meeting held earlier in the week, the Irsa chief had disclosed that water availability expected in the Indus during Rabi season would be 55 percent.
There are basically two aspects to the persistent discord over distribution of water among the federating units: meagre availability of water, and our failure to build additional reservoirs in sufficient number to dam about 35 Maf of water that flows down into the sea each year. Many analysts contend that the signing of the Indus Basin Water Treaty with India was a highly imprudent decision, which had spawned the whole problem. As a result, the major cause of inter-provincial discord over water today revolves around sharing the shortages. The Water Apportionment Accord, singed by all the four provinces in 1991 had allocated a total of 114.35 million acre feet (Maf) of water, to be distributed among the federating units. Under the accord, Punjab got 55.96 Maf, while Sindh was allocated 46.7 Maf.
It was also agreed that the federating units could undertake new water projects from their own respective shares, but without disturbing the share of other provinces. However, this provision has not been fully implemented, an example of which is the construction of Thal Canal. The inter-provincial discord has only worsened since the 1994 ministerial decision, which had virtually supplanted the 1991 parliamentary accord. Experts rightly believe that the fundamental cause of the current dispute between the provinces has been the failure of successive governments to build additional water storage capacity, as a result of which as much as 35 Maf of water flows down into the sea each year unutilised.
This failure has stunted the growth of the country's agriculture, which is the mainstay of its economy. The importance of agriculture has three dimensions: It provides food for consumers; it is a source of scarce foreign exchange in the shape of multi-faceted value addition; and it provides raw material for industrial goods. About 60 to 70 percent of industrial establishments in Pakistan are agriculture-based such as food manufacturing, tobacco, textile, leather, footwear, cotton yarn, woodwork, chemicals, fertilisers, pesticides. Viewed in the larger economic perspective, our failure to develop full potential of our agriculture is a consequence of our failure to build additional water storage capacity, because availability of water in adequate quantities is the foremost requirement.
The inter-provincial discord over water-sharing should be taken up at a political level instead of leaving it entirely to bureaucrats, because it is essentially a political issue. Therefore, it should not be difficult for the present elected government to resolve it amicably. Secondly, the implementation of the accord should be strictly in keeping with the principle of prior rights of the lower riparian provinces, non-observance of which has become the main cause of the trouble.
So hardened have become the positions taken by the provinces to protect their respective water rights that even the installation of Rs 351 million telemetry system to determine the exact quantum of water supplied to each province has failed to allay the mistrust. The government should, therefore, take up the water distribution irritants in the National Assembly to resolve them through parliamentary consensus without any delay.