Water promises to be a scarce resource globally in the new millennium. Reflecting this assessment, delay in a systematic resolution of inter-provincial water rights makes the issue potentially divisive in Pakistan
and water could also be the next most contentious issue in South Asia as Pakistan continues to claim its lower riparian rights from India.
Amidst the worldwide tussle for water, Wapda has quietly inflicted an appalling injustice on a large segment of people of the NWFP by completely diverting the Indus and depriving the people living on its banks of access to water.
The Indus has been diverted by the Ghazi-Barotha project with devastating impact downstream of the Ghazi barrage, drying up wells, draining the porous soils of moisture, threatening to turn the lush banks of the Indus into bleak and parched lands, while transforming a beautiful and clean waterway into a dead river of stones and stagnant polluted pools.
Like a curse on the land, the unimaginable loss of a natural river of the size of Indus, has unleashed crippling hardship and misery for the affected people. The diversion of water is a transgression against the fundamental right to life and decent living of the people who live downstream.
The Indus river between Tarbela and its confluence with the Kabul river is probably one of the cleanest stretches of a large river in the world at comparable latitudes and altitudes.
It flows through an undisturbed wilderness flanked by areas of dense population that have relished its waters for centuries. It is the only stretch of the Indus that is truly accessible to the people of the NWFP, inspiring many a pushto poet and enthralling numerous visitors to its banks.
Historically, while the Indus has been intertwined in the social and cultural fabric of the people, in the future its water resources could be even more important to the people as these offer endless lucrative economic opportunities to the inhabitants on its banks.
Suddenly, this irreplaceable heritage of the people has been terminated as a result of a rectifiable flaw in the design of a hydropower project stubbornly pursued by an intransigent bureaucracy and project managers.
Despite a long campaign during the mid-nineties by the affected people to protect their rights and numerous representations to the GoP, Wapda, and the main funding agencies including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, the conflict between the rights and needs of people and the Ghazi Barotha project remain unresolved. Now, the much dreaded diversion of the river is a reality, and the conflict threatens to spillover to the courts, potentially miring the project in endless litigation.
The project as currently executed cuts off almost the entire downstream water flow below the proposed barrage for seven months during the year, reducing the flow in this reach of the river to less than 10 per cent of the water in the river during the low flow season.
The project, will have serious consequences in terms of its economic, social and environmental impact on the downstream area to the confluence of the Indus and Kabul rivers. It is inevitable that the political fallout will be severely negative.
Lessons of the Kalabagh Dam are before us; the projects of national importance must avoid placing undue burden of costs on any one segment of the society. Fortunately, in the case of Ghazi-Barotha, with minor operational modifications, feasibility of the project can be maintained while protecting the rights of the affectees.
Area of adverse impact: The river reach between the barrage site and the confluence with the Kabul River, about 140 square kilometer area, is a unique natural wildness mostly untouched by man, lying in the middle of the two densely-populated areas.
In the north is the district of Swabi in the NWFP and to the south is Chach in Punjab. This is an area of striking pristine natural beauty. Turquoise blue water, studded with lush green islands in the summer and golden grasses in the winter. The affected area is home to many animals and birds including the river otter, which is on the list of internationally threatened mammals.
It is also inhabited by grey and black partridge, quail and a host of aquatic birds. The area provides a resting ground and a seasonal refuge to a large variety of migratory birds including cranes, geese, ducks, raptors and passerines.
Other winter visitors include sand grouse and some rare species from the uplands in winter including the orange bullfinch. With the destruction of the natural habitat on both sides of the river due to dense population, the area provides the last refuge for scores of bird species that nest on the islands while feeding in the fields on both sides of the river.
The aquatic life in the river is principally fish, although fresh water turtle and the river otter can still be found. There are 39 species of fish found in this reach of the Indus river, the most popular of which are Masher, Chiana and Mallah.
Historically, life of the people in the area has been inextricably tied to the river. Until recently, they have utilized the water in traditional low productivity uses; they have derived income or subsistence from fishing, they depend on fuelwood from the forest on the islands; and they use the river rain area for recreation and campaign.
Above all, they have relished the sheer pleasure of living on the banks of a large clean river like their ancestors did for thousands of years before them. The importance of the latter has grown enormously in recent years with the breakdown of municipal services and growth of urban slums in alternative locations.
Looking ahead, existing new technologies have transformed the manner in which local communities and individuals can benefit from the water resources, over which they exercise property rights. Low-head power generation, fish farming, forest development, and tourism are just some of the areas that could yield billions of rupees for the residents of the region.
In addition there are numerous commercial and domestic uses to which the cold water of the river (below 10oC in summer) can be put. In short, the Indus river in this reach is an irreplaceable asset of the people in this region and of all the people in Pakistan who have yet to discover its pristine beauty.
Ghazi Barotha project: The Ghazi Barotha project utilizes the fall of the Indus river between the tailrace of Tarbela Dam and the confluence of the Indus and Haro rivers to produce electricity.
The project comprises three basic components: a diversion barrage on the Indus river 7km downstream of Tarbela dam, a water channel about 52km long, and a 1,425 Megawatt (MW) power generating complex on the left bank of the Indus river downstream of the Attock gorge. The barrage, located upstream of the Ghazi, impounds a pond, water from which passes through a headworks structure into an open water channel with a capacity of 1600 cumecs. The water channel takes the water to a powerhouse at Barotha before discharging it back into the Indus nearly 60km downstream of Ghazi.
The inflow to the barrage pond consist almost entirely of releases from the Tarbela Dam, which are governed largely by the irrigation requirements. Reflecting this and variations in the natural inflow into Tarbela, there is a strong seasonal fluctuation in the flow of the river downstream of Tarbela. The low flow period normally extends from mid-October to April with the lowest flow during the month of January.
Currently, the project is operated to divert most of the low flow into the power channel, leaving very little water in the river downstream of the barrage, which is negligible compared to pre-project flows.
For instance, during the lowest flow two 10-day periods in January, the post-project releases are estimated to be less than 28 cumecs downstream of the barrage, while currently, the average flow in the river during the same two 10-day period is 425 cumecs.
Similarly, the planned average water release during the lean 130 days from the barrage will be only 7 per cent of the existing average flow. And over the entire 230-day low flow season from mid-October to mid-May, proposed releases are expected to be less than 10 per cent of the existing flow downstream of Tarbela.
Whatever the releases downstream of the barrage, according to the current plan, the total volume of water to be released during any single day will be released all at once during one hour, leaving the flow totally cut off during 23 hours daily.
Impact of the project: It is well recognized that historically, control over local water resources has always had important political and social implications, and any alteration in supply, access, or quality can have reverberations throughout the local society, town or indeed, the region.
The Indus river and its village waterfronts have always been socially neutral areas, providing unrestricted access to the river stream for transportation, for water and all its uses, and for social intercourse.
In recognition of this, it is inevitable that a drastic reduction in water flow below the historical low, will have sever political and social repercussions. The concerns of the local population are tied partly to current economic considerations and partly to the impact on future potential uses which are possible with existing technologies.
The effect of the changed pattern of river flow on the social and ecological conditions will be extensive. There are many obvious negative effects which are identifiable and quantifiable. The effect on groundwater, during the low flow season has already resulted in drying up the wells along the river. It also had a severe impact on the moisture content in the sandy alluvial soil. The impact on cultivated land and forest is inevitable.
There is danger that the effect on human consumptive and non-consumptive use of water may be under-estimated since many villages on the banks are located some distance from the low-flow water. The location of these villages is a reflection of the previous capacity of the river to flood and not of the irrelevance of the river water to the lives of the people. People who frequent the river regularly come from villages within 20km of the river. The significance of this aspect cannot be overstated.
The effect on water quality is related to two aspects of the flow in the Indus. First, due to the braided nature of the riverbed in this reach, pollutants coming mainly from the Gadoon-Amazai in the river may cause more damage in the channel where it is being released, than in the rest of the river. Second, the sporadic release of water in the future from the Ghazi barrage will allow pollution concentration to be periodically very high between the water releases, which would cause irreversible ecological damage.
The effect on the air temperature during hot dry months will be very conspicuous. Now people along the river enjoy the cooling effect of water that remains below 10oC. Once the water is diverted, these people will be deprived of the natural advantage of their location.
But above all, two effects of the diversion of water are most significant. One is on the future potential use of the water resources whether for small power generation units, fish farming, or tourism. The other is on the scenic beauty of the area which forms an essential part of the quality of life of the area.
Some major issues: The Ghazi-Barotha project is the first major run-of-the-river hydel project in Pakistan. Unlike dams which inundate private land with water, this project needs not only land to build on, but it also re-routes a natural watercourse, thus depriving some people of the access to water they have enjoyed in the past. The latter obviously involves riparian rights which have been completely ignored in the case of Ghazi Barotha.
Riparian rights or rights of people to access and use of a natural watercourse is the basis on which Pakistan claims water from the upstream India. The tussle over fresh water resources is at the root of many conflicts across the world.
Strategists predict that during the 21st century, control over fresh water resources will be more important than the control over oil resources. Fortunately, Pakistan has been endowed with ample fresh water resources, but their proper and equitable management remains a challenge for our policy makers. Ghazi-Barotha is an important national project in the development of cheap energy resources, but it must be designed to operate without placing an avoidable undue burden on any segment of our society.
The people of the right bank downstream of the project have established an organization called 'Abaseen', composed of representatives of nearly 40 villages in the district Swabi. While campaigning for their riparian rights, they have called for the recognition as an affected people.
They have demanded that the project be scaled down during the low flow season to ensure a minimum flow downstream of the barrage of 450 cumecs, equal to the historically lowest flow in the river during the month of January.
The impact on the total power generating capacity of the project will be small since less power is generated during the low flow season. The author is a resident of the right bank of the Indus downstream of Ghazi barrage and a former federal commerce minister.
