Anjum Ibrahim
Dire warnings by domestic and international water experts for well over two decades of a severe water crisis facing Pakistan (projected to dry up by 2025) have largely been ignored by successive centre and provincial governments, including the incumbent – a crisis that has been defined as greater than terrorism.
Neither Musharraf nor the Zardari-led PPP coalition government or the incumbent PML-N administration allocated high priority to water sector projects. In 2004, 21 years before Pakistan is forecast to dry up, Musharraf directed Amir Muqam, the then Minister of State for Water and Power, to ensure proper use of water resources, avoid a water crisis in the future and build new water reservoirs so that water and energy needs of the country may be met. Amir Muqam ignored these directives/suggestions and instead thanked Musharraf for using the taxpayers’ money to construct Nowshera-Chakdara-Chitral (NCC) road and the Lawari tunnel. Musharraf never bothered to follow up on his own directives/suggestions with his selected cabinet leading one to conclude that the content of the speech, no doubt penned by his speech writer(s), left him unmoved.
Zardari’s government spent a lot of the taxpayers’ money on subsidizing electricity (with international fuel prices rising to a historic high of over 140 dollars per barrel during his tenure); be that as it may, in 2009 the Ministry of Environment prepared a national drinking water policy, approved by the cabinet on 28 September 2009, which revealed that only 65 percent of Pakistan’s population had access to safe drinking water, and water, sanitation and hygiene related diseases were costing the country 112 billion rupees every year or 300 million rupees every day. However the policy guidelines were general, not specific or time bound and included: (i) increasing awareness, (ii) protection and conservation, (iii) water treatment and safety, (iv) appropriate technologies and standardization, (v) community participation and empowerment, (vi) public awareness, (vii) capacity development, (viii) public-private partnership, (ix) research and development (x) emergency preparedness and response, (xii) coordinated planning and implementation, (xii) legislation and (xiii) implementation and monitoring. And that is where the matter ended - no identification of clean drinking water projects, no estimate of the cost involved in meeting the policy’s objectives and no time bound targets.
The incumbent government remains focused on roads and to a lesser extent on energy generation (disturbingly without focusing on improving the deficient transmission network leading to frequent tripping resulting in significant load shedding). There is thus a dire need for all political parties to agree to deal with the water crisis on a war footing and therefore the draft national water policy released last month must be greatly appreciated. The final draft benefited greatly from input from the qualified newly appointed Chairman of the Planning Commission, Sartaj Aziz, and his suggestions ensured that the policy was not limited to safe drinking water only but included all related aspects notably: (i) priority of water uses, (ii) basin level planning for development of water resources, (iii) environmental integrity of the basin, (iv) conservation, (v) trans-boundary water sharing, (vi) irrigated agriculture, (vii) rain-fed agriculture, (viii) urban water management, (ix) hydro power, (x) industry, (xi) ground water, (xii) water rights/obligations, (xiii) demand management and (xiv) legal framework. The policy envisages the establishment of administrative bodies at the federal (National Water Council) and provincial levels (Provincial Water Authorities) focused on improving coordination with respect to water resource management.
In a recent meeting chaired by the Prime Minister the following extremely disturbing table was shared which shows that during the tenure of the incumbent government water shortfall has increased which will have obvious negative repercussions on the farm sector’s output, a major component of the Gross Domestic Product.
On 27 March 2018 the Council of Common Interest (CCI) met to discuss the Sartaj Aziz-approved water policy and all provinces agreed to its implementation; and there was agreement that proposed dams would only be approved after a consensus with the provinces – a condition that many believe is Kalabagh dam-specific given opposition to its construction by Sindh and Balochistan.
However, reservations were expressed by Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during the CCI meeting that led to a delay in the approval of the policy. Sindh suggested that 1200 cusecs be provided to Karachi from the national water pool while the Punjab representative stated that if Karachi was to be provided water from the national pool then Pindi should be as well. By April this year it was acknowledged that Indus River System is facing 60 percent water shortage (compounded by less water in Tarbela and Mangla dams/closure of the Taunsa Panjnad Link Canal) with Sindh requesting Punjab, with a later Kharif season, to divert its share of water to Sindh, to be adjusted later. This issue remains unresolved to this day. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa insisted that the net hydel profits be raised, a subject for the CCI though not part of the water policy.
Two elements of the policy need to be highlighted in the context of these reservations. First, there is a comprehensive section in the policy on (i) irrigated agriculture (“equity of water distribution between head and tail shall be ensured and water allocations between various canal commands shall be rationalized, without violating the Indus Accord allocations”); (ii) rain fed agriculture (“rain fed areas where groundwater is available at relatively shallow level will be given preference over solar pumping. Incentives and subsidies will be provided where viable”); and (iii) drinking water and sanitation (“full financial sustainability shall be aimed at for the Urban Water Supply and sanitation systems through effective reduction in wastage, theft and non-revenue water allocation and 100 percent metering, with effective safety nets for the urban and peri-urban poor. Similarly urban water tariffs must be revised to ensure financial sustainability.)”
And secondly, it is inexplicable why Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments did not raise objections at the time the policy was at the draft stage given that Secretary Irrigation signed on behalf of Chief Secretary Government of Sindh while Chief Secretary of KPK signed on behalf of his government.
Sadly, the PML-N has invested the lowest percentage of federal PSDP on water compared with the previous administration - 10.7 percent in 2013-14, 8.5 percent the following year, and no more than 3.7 percent in the current year. PPP-led coalition government never allocated less than 12 percent for the water sector (in 2010-11 and 2011-12) and the highest in 2012-13 at 14.5 percent. Musharraf’s government spent a high of 18 percent in 2006-07 though the lowest was in 2001-02 at 6.9 percent. Sadly and inexplicably clean drinking water is budgeted by the incumbent government not to receive any funding for next year though this administration can be credited with the formulation of the policy.
The most relevant component of the not yet approved draft water policy is the recommendation that the water sector be allocated at least 10 percent of the federal PSDP in next year’s budget gradually increasing it to 20 percent by 2030. That clearly is not part of the budget 2018-19. And finally, the policy does not identify or prioritize water projects for budgetary allocations which requires an urgent revisit by its architects.
