Pakistan’s water sector legislative landscape suffers from the disease of extremes: there are either too many competing laws, or none. Groundwater, which by lowest of many estimates’ services more than 55 percent of annual requirement, falls under the latter category.
A clarification, however, is necessary: groundwater is not entirely ungoverned, except that the law regulating it wasn’t particularly made for the purpose. Called the Easements Act of 1882, the colonial era concept defines ‘rights of an owner by virtue of owning his property, and rights to use property of another without possessing it’.
Out of 64 articles, the only time the Act touches on the subject of groundwater is when it defines rights of every owner to use and consume water drawn a from natural stream (above or underground), without causing material injury to others.
The fact that the law makes no distinction between personal or commercial use displays it disconnect from current times: a legislation made for a period of abundance has little relevance for times of scarcity. Yet, the last amendment was made in 1960, and barring some legislation in Balochistan, no development has taken place since.
While periodic flooding and shortage in canal water system hogs most media attention, about 85 percent of Pakistan’s total crop requirement is serviced by groundwater, according to one study by Lead Pakistan, an Islamabad-based policy think tank. High levels of salinity in groundwater render it unsuitable for agriculture in Sindh. Put together, the two facts imply that underground water resource is most widely dependent on in Punjab, which produces close to three fourths of country’s all farming output.
Yet, when it comes to groundwater disputes, Easements Act of 1882 is all that an average Punjab-based farmer has to seek redressal from. Groundwater management authorities are virtually absent in provinces, even though the subject falls under provincial jurisdiction, whether considered from the urban water supply angle or as a source of irrigation water.
Furthermore, as rapid urban development makes inroads into traditionally rural districts, culturable land in the province is depleting at an alarming rate.
Needless to say, real estate developers are very used to getting their way in securing utilities, adding pressure on the already scarce groundwater supply.
The announcement of one such scheme in prime agricultural land in Bahawalpur should be a cause of concern.
But most of all, apathy towards groundwater is most abundant in lack of regulation, where every tube well owner is legally entitled to pump out water to the fullest extent possible, limited only by availability of electricity or diesel for its engine. Even if environmental damage from rapid depletion of resource were ignored, unabated extraction under Easements Act results in a zero-sum game for farmers within same community. After all, water streams underground don’t understand land demarcation, meaning that greater withdrawals by one farmer is equal to less water available for the rest.
Textbook economics refer to such farcical situation as “tragedy of the commons”. What is more comical is that a 19th century law continues to be Pakistan’s answer to a 21st century problem.
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