Pakistan has witnessed sporadic infrastructure development in its 69 year history with little if any focus on prioritizing either social sector projects (education/health) or approving projects on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis that would enable a sitting government to take informed decisions with respect to selecting development projects funded from the taxpayers' money and/or multilateral/bilateral loans.
Pakistan is ranked 23 amongst water stressed countries category by 2040, the lowest amongst all South Asian countries including Afghanistan which was ranked at 31, by World Resources Institute (WRI) which used an ensemble of climate models and socio-economic scenarios including a measure of competition and depletion of surface water. The ranking implies that the ratio of withdrawal to supply are greater than 80 percent in Pakistan while other South Asian countries (apart from Afghanistan) registered a lower percentage of between 40 to 80 percent.
The International Monetary Fund ranks Pakistan as the third most water stressed country in the world and cites extremely disturbing data: per capita annual water availability is 1017 cubic meters, dangerously close to scarcity threshold of 1000 cubic meters, while in 2009 it was 1500 cubic meters. This implies that the decline in just seven years has been significant.
In a report dated 2013, Asian Development Bank described Pakistan as one of the most "water-stressed" countries in the world, with a water availability of 1,000 cubic meters per person per year - a fivefold drop since independence in 1947, and about the same level as drought-stricken Ethiopia.
The Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR), under the administrative control of the Ministry of Science and Technology, has warned that the country may run dry by 2025 if the government does not take action immediately. And Deutche Welle, German news agency, revealed that as per a yet-to-be released report by PCRWR, parts of which have been made available to the media, "Pakistan touched the water stress line" in 1990.
Data suggests that we are the world's fourth highest in terms of water use and our water intensity rate (defined as the amount of water used per unit of Gross Domestic Product) is the world's highest; and no other country in the world is more water intensive than Pakistan. The Fund in a report argues that high use of water is because canal water is under-priced "recovering only one-quarter of annual operating and maintenance costs. Meanwhile, agriculture, which consumes almost all annual available surface water, is largely untaxed". In addition, experts point out that population growth and urbanisation are also responsible for the water crisis and further maintain that the issue has been exacerbated by climate change, poor water management, and a lack of political will to deal with the crisis.
To compound this sad state of affairs the major culprit in the country's inexorable move towards becoming a water scarce country is the failure of successive governments, including the incumbent, of constructing reservoirs on rivers that flow into Pakistan. In India, approximately one-third of the water supply is stored in reservoirs, compared with just 9 percent in Pakistan. And sadly the incumbent government has so far made no move to invest in building reservoirs. PCRWR notes on its website three ongoing projects that include: (i) demarcation of ground water quality zones in Indus plain and marginal areas for sustainable development and management of groundwater (lower Indus plain), (ii) establishment of national capacity building institution for water quality management and (iii) integrated water resources management in highly depleted Pishin-Lora basin of Balochistan.
Approved projects that have not yet received funding are (i) evaluation of interceptor drains and scavenger in LBOD component Shaheed Benazirabad, (ii) integrated approach for control of water logging and salinity in low lying areas of Sindh, (iii) improved land and water conservation practised to enhance waste land and productivity in Thar, (iv) exploration of ground water potential and promotion of intervention for rainwater harvesting and bio saline agriculture in Thar and (v) trans-boundary effects on ground and surface waters along the western border of Pakistan. The approved projects need to receive prompt funding, however, they are by and large area specific and one would urge the government to begin water storage projects on the same scale as energy generation projects.
All Pakistani consumers, domestic, agricultural and industrial, are expected to be subjected to water shortages as well as higher water related costs. Domestic consumers have been compelled to procure bottled water for drinking purposes in recent years but unfortunately, though perhaps not surprisingly, several companies began supplying contaminated bottled water. This prompted the then government (2005) to direct PCRWR to monitor water quality of all bottled water companies on a quarterly basis and its following assessment dated 2016 is disturbing: total number of brands 111 with 89 brands declared safe and 12 brands unsafe with arsenic.
Why is drinking tap water no longer safe? As per World Health Organization: "drinking water quality is deteriorating continually due to biological contamination from human waste, chemical pollutants from industries and agricultural inputs. Piped water also gets contaminated because pipes are laid very close to sewerage lines or open drains and cause many serious water borne diseases. It was found that 45% of infant deaths have been attributed to diarrhea and about 60% to overall infectious waterborne diseases in Pakistan".
Pakistan as a lower riparian country also requires an India willing to abide by the international laws that govern upper riparian countries. Pakistan Water Partnership (PWO) has highlighted the fact that the frequency of monsoon rains has decreased while their intensity has increased and suggested the need to implement: (i) joint monitoring and data sharing climate change impacts, glacier melt and change in monsoon patterns; (ii) trans-boundary flood and drought management; (iii) joint research on enhancing food productivity; (iv) joint investment in developing energy resources of the basin; (v) joint efforts in water use efficiency plans; (vi) initiating trans-boundary energy sharing agreements; (vii) creating a strong cross border nexus of water, food and energy; and (viii) vigorously following Track-II diplomacy. Relevant suggestions for both India and Pakistan, however they appear to be undoable in Modi's India.
Michael Kugelman, South Asia expert at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center, told DW that Pakistan government must step up efforts to overcome the crisis, which is partly man-made. "First of all, Pakistan's leaders and stakeholders need to take ownership of this challenge and declare their intention to tackle it. Simply blaming previous governments, or blaming India, for the crisis won't solve anything. Next, the government needs to institute a major paradigm shift that promotes more judicious use of water". This in a nutshell is the responsibility of the incumbent government and one would hope that it focuses on discharging it forthwith.