KARACHI: The Sindh government has expressed its unwillingness for allocation of water to Islamabad/Rawalpindi from its share under the Water Accord 1991 partly because the province has already been facing acute shortage of water and lack of discharge of freshwater into sea has devoured hundreds of thousands of cultivated pieces of land in its coastal belt, it emerged on Wednesday.

The issue of allocation of drinking water for the country’s capital and its sister city was raised in the recently held 26th meeting of the Council of Common Interests (CCI) in Islamabad on May 29, 2014.

This issue was discussed in detail in the 25th meeting of the CCI held on Feb 10, 2014.

The participants after deliberations had decided that the minister for finance would hold consultations with provincial chief ministers within 30 days “without re-referring the matter to the CCI”.

The finance minister stated that all the provinces except for Sindh had agreed to share the water need of Islamabad in accordance with the Water Accord formula.

Also read: Poor coordination causes 50pc water shortage in Sindh, Balochistan

When Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar drew attention of Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah towards the “urgency and importance of the matter and to take the decision on top priority”, the CM contended that Sindh being a lower riparian was facing “acute shortage of water”.

Under these circumstances, it was very difficult to cut the Sindh’s share to fulfil water requirement of Islamabad, argued Qaim Ali Shah, according to the minutes of the meeting.

Furthermore, the provincial chief executive also pointed out that Karachi, being a mega city of 20 million, was also being provided drinking water from the share of Sindh.

Moreover, he referred that presently sea-water intrusion was badly affecting two million acres of land in the coastal belt where standing crops had been destroyed.

“Sindh is still provided with water as per 1991 Water Accord, but the population has increased tremendously since then,” contended Qaim Ali Shah.“In this critical condition, Sindh is not asking for additional water, but trying to fulfil its water needs from within its own resources and planning to install desalination/reverse osmosis plants all over the province,” the chief minister was quoted as having said this.

CCI Secretary Muham­mad Ejaz Chaudhry, who had also served as chief secretary of Sindh, reportedly explained that the overall required water for Islamabad was 200 cusec which meant around 95 cusec from Punjab, 83 cusec from Sindh, 15 cusec from Khyber-Pakhunkhwa and seven cusec water from Balochistan was needed in accordances with the Water Accord of 1991.

The finance minister proposed to the chair that he should be given some more time for consultation and resolution of the issue at the leadership level.

Agreeing to this proposal, the CCI allowed more time to the finance minister to resolve the issue.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2014