Addressing a large gathering of growers and others at Tehsil Sadiqabad of district Rahimyar Khan on August 19 to mark inauguration of the Rs 66 billion countrywide water channels lining project, President Pervez Musharraf pointed out that its completion in the next four years would ensure saving of around 3 MAF water annually, that is, one-third of eight million acre-feet (MAF) water that goes waste annually due to Kachcha water channels alone.
Dilating upon the importance of this long due initiative, he said the government is making strenuous efforts to resolve the water scarcity problem, and has initiated a number of projects, including canals, lining of water channels, construction/repair of barrages, expressing the hope that their completion would boost the agriculture sector in a big way.
However, while giving these happy tidings, he rightly stated that it could not happen overnight and that the people will have to wait for it. As for the other gains accruing from this ambitious venture, he also made a pointed reference to the job opportunities it will provide for 150,000 unemployed youth, more so in the much-depressed rural areas of the country.
In this regard, reiterating the government's strong commitment to poverty reduction, he referred to its main focus on the rural areas, as they happen to be inhabited by some 60 to 70 percent of the country's population.
Looking at it from whatever angle, the water channels lining project will leave little to doubt about its worth and value.
This, of course, has reference also to its strong relevance to the accumulated water-related problems over the decades past. Needless to point out, this should also serve as a sad reminder of the apathy of successive governments to the need of its proper addressing from an objective comprehension and scientifically planned approach. It is, however, just another matter that while failing to grasp the mounting severity of deepening water crisis, they remained involved in efforts to build the Kalabagh dam, seemingly unmindful of its ghastlier political dimensions.
It will thus be noted that as a sequel to this kind of a flawed approach, the gigantic dream project had turned into a nightmare when General Pervez Musharraf took over in 1999.
This, again, has reference to his objective comprehension of the causes of the country's economic predicament, thereby making it his mission to revive it. Evidently, convinced of the urgency of addressing the water scarcity problem, which had taken a heavy toll of the country's predominantly agriculture sector, he focused on the availability of water to the required scale.
As such, giving due priority to activate the slumbered Kalabagh project, in view of its tremendous economic potential, he launched a whole-hearted effort to de-politicise it through a consensus-building approach.
That, indeed, was necessitated in view of the really alarming political dimensions it was allowed to acquire from procrastination of the past governments in a row over a long period.
However, the needed consensus remaining elusive, he turned to other means of plugging the gap between increasing demand and depleting availability of water, thereby leading to the efforts for building small dams and reservoirs.
Quite some progress has been achieved in that direction, but highly time-consuming as such projects are, it will take rather too long before they become operational.
It was, probably, this reason that prompted the government to focus on conservation of water, thus pointing to the advisability of revamping of the country's huge irrigation network of which the lining of the Kachcha water channels is an integral part.
It will certainly help conserve water to quite some extent, thereby also allowing some breathing space for the construction of big dams and reservoirs.
This is, perhaps, why the President has expressly underlined the need for evolving a consensus on construction of dams as soon as possible, pledging that the rights of all the provinces would be protected.
All this is quite understandable, but how to go about building consensus on construction of the big dams is a question that will call for an answer not as much from the politicians as from the people, maybe, through their elected representatives now running local governments all over the country.
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