Pakistan faces a treat of a drought hitting hard the kharif crops, cotton and rice in particular, warns the meteorological department. There is little expectation of a significant rainfall in the next two months. And the water level at Tarbela and Mangla reservoirs has already dropped to critical levels, says its report.

The drought which is feared to hit Sindh and Balochistan first will have an adverse impact on the cotton crop which had a record output of nearly 50 million bales last year. The prospect of meeting the rice target, which had a record export of over a billion dollar this year, are also dim.

It will also affect livestock, horticulture and ultimately drinking water almost everywhere. Obviously the lasting remedy for such a recurring crisis is the building of large reservoirs and using the water more economically. But building such mega dams as the Kalabagh and Basha has been a political issue, apart from raising large funds for such reservoirs with the promise of perennial water supply and hydel power, the cheapest source of power.

The issue has arisen again and there is a large trust deficit in respect of these mega dams. The fear is that these dams may not fulfil the promise to the small provinces and may instead lose their share of the additional water. Whether the feared drought improves the approach to the big dams and reduces the trust deficit remains to be seen.

Of course there is the funding issue for the five dams approved. When the country is politically divided on several issues and the small provinces oppose the large reservoirs, the international lenders will be even more reluctant to fund them and may find it difficult to set up consortiums.

Anyway, the World Bank is in the lead to fund them as it finds Pakistan a greatly water-starved country. At a time when the world price of oil has risen to $75 a barrel and may touch $100, hydel power remains the cheapest source of power for Pakistan. So we must opt for these reservoirs along with their power production systems.

As for more economic use of water, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has announced a Rs 15 billion scheme for five years to promote drip cultivation. That has been mentioned so often before but this time the government may take it more seriously.

Minister for water and power Liaquat Jatoi says the KESC should not opt for loadshedding in summer without notice. The fact is whether it is loadshedding or a partial or total breakdown in the supply system we suffer these frequently in summer when the power is in short supply while the demand shoots up. In Central Asia it is the other way round as they have surplus power in summer which is exportable.

So, heedless of the minister’s orders that loadshedding should not take place in summer, power failure is common. And we are now reviving an earlier effort to get surplus power from Central Asia with the backing of international financial institutions.

A two-day conference of the ministers for energy in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Pakistan was held this week in Islamabad to discuss the possibility of import of the surplus power of Tajikistan into Pakistan via Afghanistan. An agreement has been reached with Tajikistan for import of 1,000 kilo watts of energy through a power line, mounted on poles into Pakistan ten years ago, but the agreement could not materialise because of the fighting in Afghanistan.

Now Kyrgyzstan has also joined the group with two interested oil companies and a less troubled Afghanistan. How the deal backed by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and International Finance Corporation and some power companies eventually works out remains to be seen. The safety of the power lines also matters.

The next public sector development programme will be worth Rs 245 billion, the current year’s plan being Rs. 272 billion, to keep up the high rate of economic growth and provide education infrastructure for industry and agricultural growth. But allocated 17 per cent more funds are not enough if the additional power and water needed are not available. Power should hence have the top most priority.

The problem with Pakistan is its large population — 165 million of them. Too many people have too little to share and too many privileged claimants among them. Apart from a small number it is not a highly educated population with great skills. That reduces their mobility and makes them confined to their roots as in Balochistan and Frontier province. But not much time Pakistan can afford to waste in a highly competitive world. Even South Asia is awake making rapid progress while Pakistan is grappling with some of the age-old issues. If jobs are available in large numbers, there could be greater mobility and people move to other regions.

Failure to build one of the large dams can cost the country four billion dollars per year, says Dr Salman Shah, Advisor to the Prime Minister. And if the approved five dams were built by 2015 they can add ten to fifteen billion dollars to the GDP of the country. He says that with a $120 billion economy a new mega dam contributes 2.5 per cent to its GDP every year.

Meanwhile, power is being made more costly as the Nepra has approved a 15 per cent rise in power rates for KESC. Earlier, a 23 per cent rise was recommended by Nepra but was ignored by the Government.

The debate continues whether poverty is increasing or decreasing in the country. According to the government officials, led by the prime minister, poverty is decreasing and prosperity is increasing. For others, including President Musharraf, inflation, unemployment and poverty are the problems that badly affect people and need greater attention from the government.

Meanwhile, a study reported by the BBC about Pakistan as being among the tenth vulnerable states is vigorously challenged by the government statistically. The tenth state is Afghanistan and Pakistan comes ninth.

According to another report of the United Nations Children Emergency Fund nearly half the children of South Asia under the age of five are under weight and despite some progress, the region is far from reaching the goal of halving hunger by 2015. They say that South Asia is behind the target. But in case of Pakistan, officials say, that goal has already been achieved and poverty already halved.

In a recent seminar in Islamabad, an expert on poverty suggested that 2.1 million acres of surplus land available with the government should be distributed amongst the poor. Now that leaders like Zafarullah Jamali are opposed to new land reforms and distribution of lands to the landless, distributing the surplus land of the government maybe one way of reducing poverty and increasing the agricultural output.

But according to other estimates far more surplus lands are available with the government and they can be productively distributed among the landless and cultivated. But the government is currently busy distributing more lands to Defence housing authorities in Islamabad and Lahore to expand posh housing as a priority for the affluent.

Now that the planning commission has been expanded and revitalized with a 20-member board it can review the problems of poverty in its entirety and come up with appropriate solutions. The approach to poverty should be non-contentious and the results indisputable more so when the UN is likely to look into it. The planning commission along with the commission for reforming bureaucracy should be able to recommend a better administration set-up.

It was said at the seminar on poverty in Islamabad that poor governance hurt the poor more. That is true indeed, whether that be in the shape of corrupt and inefficient policeman and a feeble or corrupt low judiciary. In addition what is promised to the poor in the shape of more and better schools and hospitals is hardly ever delivered to them and the poor man’s protest in this regard evokes little response unless he takes to violence.

In such circumstances they are promised reforms of the system but real reforms in practice hardly ever come through, more so in the regions dominated by feudal lords and tribal chiefs.