Social & Political Aspects of Water Crisis in Pakistan: Post # 22

1. Management of Population Dimension

Population Management as a Way-out for Stopping Drop in Water Availability per capita: It is interesting to note that everyone in Pakistan is concerned about the downward slide in water availability, but we hardly ever mention the major cause of the steep drop in annual water availability per person from 5300 m³ in 1950-53 to under the water scarcity marker of 1000 m³ presently—that is, population explosion. In order to obtain a realistic appreciation of the water crisis we face, we need to acknowledge the importance of the effect of the population hike from 34 million in 1953 to 176 million in 2010.

This increase in demand is also evident in the fact that irrigated land has increased from 9.23 million hectare in 1950-53 to 18.02 million hectares in 2000-03, which is an increase of almost 100 percent. However, our surface water diversions to the irrigated lands only increased from 83.4 BCM (67.64 MAF) to 129.4 BCM (104.95 MAF) during the same period. Since this increase in water availability was less than the additional area brought under irrigation, annual water delivery depth per unit area actually dropped from 0.90 m to 0.72 m—these figures are significantly lower than the required irrigation depths for each province, as illustrated in Table 3. With the use of tube-well technology introduced in the 1960’s, additional groundwater availability of about 50.29 BCM (40.8 MAF) has brought the current annual water depth to 1.0 m, which is only slightly higher than before. Hence, even with the additional groundwater resources, we do not have an adequate amount of water supply and are forced to live with a deficit irrigation phenomenon in this country. It is no wonder that our productivity in many crops is well below that found on the Indian side of the Indus Basin.

Based on the data presented above, it appears that the main cause of the steep drop in per capita water availability has less to do with the quantity of water available and more to do with the ongoing population explosion in Pakistan. Unless we come up with measures to manage this explosion, there is no way to check this free fall in the annual water availability per capita.

2. Additional Confidence Building Measures regarding Indus Water Treaty: 

Why do we need additional measures to implement the Indus Water Treaty when there are already institutional provisions in the form of the Indus Water Commission and a built-in mechanism for a neutral arbitrator that can be sought through the World Bank? One obvious answer is that the existing provisions have not helped to fully remove the mistrust developed between our upper and lower riparian states. The main reason for this mistrust is that most Pakistanis have come to believe that the existing mechanisms are not sufficient and additional confidence building measures are needed to ensure that the treaty is followed in its true letter and spirit. In order to address this mistrust, Indian journalist Sandeep Dikshit reports that the Government of Pakistan has proposed the following steps (the Hindu, 12^th March 2010):

1. Construction of projects at three western rivers should be undertaken only after objections are amicably resolved;
2. Joint watershed management should be agreed upon;
3. Joint commission of environmental studies be established;
4. India should provide details of any new project six months before commencement;
5. Diversions for storage and farm purposes should be conveyed to Pakistan; and
6. India should also provide details about ancillary projects.

In response, India has expressed its concerns, as per the referred report:

1. Pakistan needs to improve water management , and
2. The drop in flow is because of overall pattern of receding glaciers.

Regarding the first point from the Indian side, water management improvements have been Pakistan’s main focus for the last four decades or so. However, there is a lot of room for improvement and any good suggestions in this area should be seriously considered, such as a greater focus on watershed management. India’s second point further highlights the need for Pakistan’s proposal of a joint commission for conducting environmental studies. If glaciers are receding, they must be receding due to excessive melting—therefore, it does not in itself explain the current drop in water flow in the rivers entering Pakistan. Hence, it makes sense to improve trust between the two states by jointly conducting such environmental studies to let scientific data support or reject such ongoing arguments.

Dikshit’s report also states Pakistani concerns about deforestation and water pollution on the Indian side of Pakistan’s rivers. Furthermore, Pakistani officials often have complaints regarding Indian non-responsiveness to their concerns raised in the Indus Water Commission.

In the given context, if both countries wish to follow the Indus Water treaty of 1960 in its true letter and spirit, they must whole heartedly support this proposition of adding necessary confidence building measures to ensure transparent, honest and fair water transactions as agreed upon in the treaty. 

Demanding a renegotiation of this treaty would be tantamount to opening Pandora’s box and would likely become too difficult to manage. We must remember that it took India and Pakistan more than 12 years to strike a deal; it is hence better for regional peace and security if our emphasis remains on demanding potential confidence building measures to ensure its proper implementation. If rationality prevails on both sides, this is a doable option whereas the alternative of revisiting or reinventing this treaty would be too dangerous for both states to even contemplate.

After the most recent (March 2010) meeting of the Indus Basin Commission in Lahore, the Pakistani representative has hinted on an agreement to install a telemetry system to monitor water levels at different points along the western rivers of the Indus Basin. At this time, details of such an agreement have not been made public; nevertheless, this is an important and encouraging development. However, it remains to be seen if both parties have also agreed to jointly operate and maintain this monitoring technology or if they plan to hire a third party to operate and manage this appreciable confidence building measure. It goes without saying that if a fool-proof arrangement is not agreed upon for the operation and management of such a system, mere installation of such devices will turn out to be only a window-dressing gimmick. Both parties should review the failure of the telemetry system previously installed in Pakistan and Egypt for flow monitoring and then decide upon a mutually satisfactory arrangement to make such a technology based CBM work.

The remaining three western rivers of the Indus Basin are virtual life-lines for Pakistan and its people. As both Pakistan and India are nuclear states, any threat to the survival of one can seed destruction all around. Hence, this water issue has a real potential for turning this beautiful sub-continent into Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Neither of these countries can rationally contemplate the emergence of such a scenario. Therefore, if India and Pakistan wish to implement the Indus Water Treaty in its original letter and spirit, they both should remain focused on adding mutually verifiable CBMs to eliminate all sources of distrust on trans-boundary water management.

If there is no hidden agenda to hurt each other, let us also consider stationing representatives from Pakistan at each dam site and control point as Egypt, being a lower riparian country itself, has been allowed to do for monitoring purposes. Without such institutional arrangements in place, even a telemetry system will not deliver desired results.

Of course, whereas Egypt, while being the lower riparian of the Nile River, is a dominating regional power, Pakistan does not enjoy such a status. In the South Asian sub-continent, India is the dominating regional power as well as a non-friendly upper riparian state. This presents a doubly uneven playing field for Pakistan. All cards are virtually in the Indian hands and it is playing these cards blatantly.

By allowing India to have sluice gates for the removal of silt in the Baglihar case, the “neutral arbitrator” has set a devastating precedent without assigning pre-conditions to safe guard the original spirit of the treaty to ensure proper water quantity and proper timing. For example, the recent filling of the Baglihar Dam occurred when the river flow was too low and it was a critical time for planting crops in Pakistan. It does not require rocket-science to foresee what the other dozens of planned dams in India can do to Pakistan since its main economy is agriculture.

Needless to say, water is not an ordinary issue for Pakistan. Its rivers are the lifeline for its survival and its existence depends upon the implementation of the Indus Water Treaty not only in letter, but in spirit. Obviously Pakistan would like this treaty to address all possible hindrances and potential manipulations in terms of quantity and timing of all allocated flows from the three western rivers to its territory.

In such a scenario, there is a real potential for things getting out of control for both nuclear states. People from both sides have to realize the potential dangers and force their decision-makers to stop playing games with the survival of more than one billion people of India and Pakistan and start devising solid confidence building measures to calm this emotive and combustible situation. As Professor John Briscoe cautions, India is in the driver’s seat, and it has all the levers of control to avoid a train-wreck on the Indus.

3. Additional Confidence Building Measures for Implementing Water Apportionment Accord of 1991: 

What a strange irony of fate that the measures that Pakistan demands from India as a lower riparian state, its provinces are hesitant to practice in domestic water distribution. The Accord of 1991 actually provides a unique opportunity and challenges all domestic stakeholders to demonstrate that they are capable of thinking creatively about new and effective confidence building measures on their own. For the next step, they should be courageous enough to plan and implement all such new confidence building measures to eliminate fears and reservations regarding water distribution among the four units of Pakistan and to finally end the ongoing blame game against each other.

At the domestic level, Punjab is the relevant upper riparian region for Sindh and is the relatively dominant province of Pakistan. As such, it replaces India in the local context as the power in the driver’s seat of the water train, with most of the controls in its hands. Here is the litmus test for Punjab to set a good example by avoiding the “train wreck”. What Professor John Roscoe proposed to India as a upper riparian state when explaining Pakistan’s feelings, I can apply the same here with appropriate alterations, to the people of Punjab—that there must be some courageous and open-minded Punjabis – whether in the government or out – who will stand up and explain to the public why water is not just an issue for Sind, but why it is an existential issue for Sind. A similar statement goes for the people of Sind in the context of their role as an upper riparian region for some parts of Baluchistan. Perhaps this can help create an environment conducive for rational discussion among all concerned.

To be fair to all the stakeholders in Pakistan, water is equally a matter of existential issue for Punjab as well. As a matter of fact, this desperation for water that we see in all concerned stakeholders in Pakistan could be considered a positive factor as it should facilitate their ability to empathize with the concerns and reactions of the lower riparian regions. However, history does not support this optimism. Instead, narrow but emotional, self-serving alternatives are being cashed in to promote parochialism for political gains. Not surprisingly then, such self-destructive politicization of technical issues of water acquisition and distribution has been no help in facing the water crisis. Moreover, if we continue to follow this same irrational path in the future, we will be playing into the hands of those people who wish that Pakistan, the California of Asia, is converted into the Somalia of Africa. If that happens, we will not be able to blame it all on outside elements, as we keep on avoiding to accept emerging challenges and responsibilities to avert such a crisis.

As stated earlier, the Water Apportionment Accord of 1991 was a great achievement in securing consensus among four provinces of Pakistan where discord is a common phenomenon but accord is an almost unheard commodity. This accord was based on brute give and take arrangements, and hence, this consensus based agreement must be adhered to and strengthened as a way out to plan and implement water projects as per allocated water resources for each province.

On one hand, there are people in Sindh who cry foul over this agreement and claim that Punjab took undue share of Indus water under this agreement. On the other hand people in Punjab have their own grievances. For many Punjabis, water should be distributed in the Indus Valley equitably based on area irrigated as per accepted and implemented principles of basic design in an irrigation system; thus, is it fair that when Punjab has 75.5% of the total irrigated area of Pakistan in 1990-1993, it should only get 47.67% of total water allocation? This causes severe heart-burn when Punjabis see that Sindh has only 15.5% of total irrigated area in Pakistan at the time of this Accord, yet it received 41.55% of total water allocation from the Indus River System. In their view, as the agricultural sector uses 97% of the total water available in Pakistan, this operational rule should have been followed instead of historic claims that lost relevance with the establishment of modern weir-controlled canals designed for equitable water distribution based on irrigated area (replacing the outdated inundation canals). A fair agreement would have been one where 97% of the water allocation (the portion of total water usage attributed to agriculture) was equitably based on irrigated area and the remaining 3% of total water available to Pakistan was distributed on a population basis.

Nevertheless, as Punjab signed this Accord, as law abiding people of Pakistan, the above exercise in what should have been serves only to demonstrate the extent of compromise and sacrifice made by the majority group for a the minority group of one country—there is no question of second thoughts to unsettle an issue that has already been settled through consensus. As a matter of fact, we should remind ourselves that a consensus building process always requires some give and take and politically sharp people usually extract the maximum benefit.

For Sindh, achieving consensus to secure more than their fair share in the emerging scenario of severe water scarcity is a monumental success. At present, rather than crying foul so that they can claim more, it would be more productive for them if they invest their extra efforts for devising and implementing credible confidence building measures to ensure that their share of water is distributed as per the Accord of 1991.

Similarly, Baluchistan should be given the same right to have all such CBMs put in place in Sindh so as to ensure they are provided with their agreed upon share—just as Sindh would wish to have such measures to get its due share from Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Some arrangements are already put in place but either they are not very effective or their functionality is questionable.

For example, as informed by a former irrigation secretary of Punjab, Sindh has its representatives appointed at critical control points of the Indus River System to monitor actual water distribution as it happens. I am sure that such an arrangement must have been on a reciprocal basis. My proposal will be that we spend less time criticizing a well-intended arrangement but invest more time and effort in finding the root causes of potential discord and suggesting additional adjustments or changes to make the existing arrangement a well-functioning CBM.

Then there is the expensive telemetry system that has been installed to provide real time flow data at critical control points along the Indus River System. The only thing functional in this context is the ongoing blame game and not the telemetry system itself. Why did all this investment go to waste without producing the intended positive results? No neutral or local entity has been made to study the failure of this excellent real-time monitoring system. My proposal would be that we set up a time-bound independent judicial commission or ask the International Water Management Institute to study the real causes of failure and suggest ways and means to make it work as per the satisfaction of all stakeholders.

The Indus River System Authority (IRSA), is itself an excellent CBM between beneficiaries as far as this arrangement for water distribution is concerned. As compared to the Indus Water Commission, IRSA is much more effective in allocating water among all four contending provinces. In order to address complaints from Sindh, Musharaf put a Sindh based federal representative in addition to the four members from all four provinces for IRSA. In Punjab, such arrangements is perceived to be unfair as it is the province that produces almost 80% of the granary in Pakistan but the referred change further reduced its corresponding role and say in water distribution at national level.

For any arrangement to succeed and be sustainable, it has to be fair for all. In this context, a third party should be hired to study the weaknesses of IRSA and propose measures that make this body a fair institution instead of a kind of inter-provincial semi-political game club where all dice are loaded against only one province. As the cliché goes, only fair games produce fair results; let us ensure a fair and honest game for the sake of all concerned once and for all. If we wish to have non-controversial institutions, let more honest and transparent efforts be invested in making IRSA itself a confidence building measure for all four provinces.

In view of the disharmony and discontent over water distribution, we have a long way to go putting in all transparent and effective safe-guards in place before getting a satisfactory and functional system at the national level. If we manage to do so, our success at home will provide us with a precedent that can then be used to demand similar workable measures at the regional level under the Indus Water Treaty. In other words, if we cannot be fair and transparent in our dealing with our domestic water issues, how can we demand a fair and transparent implementation of the Treaty from a not-so-friendly upper riparian and regional power that holds all the cards in the given context?