The 41-page National Water Policy presented in the Council of Common Interest (CCI) on Tuesday is a comprehensive policy in that it covers drought and floods, which have alternately plagued Pakistan in recent years; its recommendations are succinct and, if implemented, would go a long way in meeting the looming water crisis which, according to a report by United Nations Development Programme, is a much greater issue than terrorism and has projected that Pakistan would dry up by 2025. With just seven years remaining, the Policy urges the government to allocate at least 10 percent of Federal Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) on the water sector which should be increased to 20 percent gradually by 2030.
The Policy was prepared under the revised directives/suggestions by Sartaj Aziz, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, with the requisite education and experience required to deal with the issue. The policy architects claim that the provinces were consulted; however, Business Recorder was informed by Senator Muhammad Usman Khan Kakar from Balochistan, and Nawab Yousaf Talpur from Sindh, that no such consultations took place. Be that as it may, the two men maintained that Balochistan and Sindh requested the PML-N government in the centre to allocate funds for water projects to their capitals - Quetta and Karachi - or else they would dry up and there would be mass migrations to other parts of the country. The two men proposed multi-billion rupee mega water projects to be launched under the umbrella of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor. Talpur also pointed out that during a parliamentary committee meeting, Chairman Indus River System Authority Syed Mazhar Ali Shah admitted that water is being distributed to the provinces on a three-tier formula rather than on the 1991 Water Accord, a concern for Sindh province voiced in 2010 by the then Sindh Irrigation Minister Murad Ali Shah.
Former Senator Muhammad Mohsin Khan Leghari from Punjab pointed out that to date there has been no proper planning in terms of dealing with water issues and added that there is massive corruption in the sector and unscrupulous profiteers are profiting from water inadequacy.
The Water Policy contains a set of relevant recommendations ranging from revitalization and restructuring of Wapda, establishment of ground water authority, conservation and efficiency (Pakistan wastes around 25 billion rupees of water every year), storage (requiring the building of dams as well as reservoirs on a war footing), investment, capacity building of water sector institutions, and establishment of National Water Council (as the federal government must play a lead role in facilitating regulations to ensure efficient and sustainable use of ground water, industrial use and waste water management).
The Policy also mentions the negative impact of climate change responsible for an increasingly erratic monsoon and the fact that Pakistan is not an upper riparian country with reference to India violating the World Bank-brokered Indus Water Treaty (IWT). It proposes that a mechanism be worked out for sharing trans-boundary aquifers and joint watershed management which is unlikely with Narendra Modi's India. However, international experts maintain that while the focus of Pakistan's successive governments has been on highlighting Indian recalcitrance in conforming to the spirit of the IWT yet not a single administration has focused on domestic measures that would mitigate the dire prognosis of Pakistan drying up by 2025.
True that the water scarcity issue is global with the ongoing UN organised World Water Forum noting that 5.7 billion people around the world may run short of drinking water yet successive Pakistani administrations have been lax in dealing with this issue. There is therefore an urgent need for the next budget (federal as well as provincial) to include appropriate allocation for the water sector, mega projects are required on a war footing, conservation measures must be legislated and those violating them must be punished, and a greater focus must be placed on environment protection that is fuelling climate change.
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