Impending water crisis

The Director-General of the Meteorological Department, Dr Qamar-uz-Zaman, has issued a dire forecast about scanty rains and a possible drought in the country, especially in Sindh and Balochistan.
In a press statement released on Sunday, he said no significant rain activity is expected during the next two months. Last year, too, he pointed out, the country received 40 percent less rain than the usual and snowfall in the catchment areas remained below normal by 20-25 percent.
He described the situation in the different reservoirs, including Mangla and Tarbela, as serious, also pointing out that water in the small dams, such as Simly, Rawal and Khanpur, has already receded to the critical level. Moderate drought conditions, he disclosed, have now developed in Balochistan, and are likely to worsen in the coming months with the possibility of spreading to other parts of the country.
Notably, according to Dr Zaman, the federal and provincial agriculture authorities were briefed about the impending crisis during the Federal Agriculture Committee meeting on April 4. And shortly afterwards, ie, in the second week of April, Indus River System Authority (Irsa) was informed of it during a specially convened meeting at the Ministry of Water and Power.
The message though does not seem to have sunk in where it mattered.
According to a Recorder Report, the Minister of Water and Power, Liaqat Ali Jatoi, presided over a water review meeting in Islamabad last Saturday, where the Irsa Chairman presented an entirely different picture. The rim station inflows following the melting of snows in the upper regions, he informed the meeting, had reached 1,88,300 cusecs, which is about 8 percent more water than the earlier Irsa estimate of about 1,73,000.
Hence, he said, the provinces' demand would be met in full as the water had been released from the Tarbela Dam, which could reach Chashma around May 8. Said the Irsa chief, "From the next week Punjab will get 110,000 cusecs, Sindh 76,000 cusecs, NWFP 2,700 cusecs and Balochistan 3,400 cusecs." One is at a loss to decide whom to believe, the Met department head, who says the water level in Tarbela is critically low or the Irsa chief who says there is nothing to worry about, and the water is actually on its way to different recipients?
The optimism of the Irsa chief may have been based on the fact that since the snowfall in the Tarbela Dam catchment area had been less than normal this season, its melting was expected to start earlier than at the usual time.
Still, it is one more example of adhocism that characterizes most plans and actions of our government departments. But the Met department chief has clearly stated that there is no chance of improvement in the Mangla Dam water level before the monsoon time and that the seasonal snow in its catchment area has already melted.
The immediate impact of the water shortage will be felt by the cotton sector. The Karachi Cotton Brokers Association has already expressed the concern that cotton sowing may be delayed while a senior Minfal official has said that the three-million-hectare target of cotton sowing now appeared to be a big challenge.
And if the rains during the next two months remain below normal, as predicted by the Met department, rice and sugar cane cultivation too would take a blow. Hence it remains to be seen how the government, in particular Irsa, rises to the challenge ahead.
The lower riparian Sindh would naturally be worried how the government might want to apply the Water Accord, with or without the amendment that a simple ministerial committee made to it and which Sindh sees as an unfair favour to Punjab? It is important that water shortages are distributed in proportionate terms so that no one province complains of being handed a raw deal.
That objective can be best achieved through the activation of the Council of Common Interests (CCI). Unfortunately, contrary to constitutional requirement, not a single meeting of the CCI has been held during the past several years.
The water distribution issue being as sensitive as it is, the government must try to come to grips with it by involving all the stakeholders, through the CCI, as it tries to find ways and means of dealing with the impending shortages and actual or drought-like conditions.