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EFFECTIVE governance is the key to success in any state department or sector. This ensures efficient service delivery. Yet governance in Sindh has been found wanting for a long time and water governance is no exception.
Sindh’s farmers again experienced acute water shortage this summer. The problem results from the absence of strong governance. While shortage of irrigation water during the kharif season is not a new phenomenon in Sindh, the disturbing thing is that its severity is increasing every year as no immediate solution seems in sight.
Where inter-provincial water distribution is concerned, Sindh’s reservations over releases from national reservoirs are justified, considering the water requirement in early summer and flows for Kotri downstream. Sindh needs water in April when Punjab doesn’t, for its lower region has early sowing trends where cultivation of crops begins two to three weeks before the upper parts of Sindh.
Though the Mangla Dam is a national asset, it is apparently meant for meeting Punjab’s water needs primarily. Sindh doesn’t get a drop of water from it because the dam is filled at that point of time, even when flows in the Indus are insufficient to meet requirements. Perhaps that’s why a committee on water resources had questioned the criteria of filling Mangla in its report, outlining guiding principles for operational criteria of the dam.
Sindh’s irrigation system is in bad shape.
In the absence of flows water shortage eventually hits the tail end of the Sukkur and Kotri barrages. A 62pc shortage was recorded at Kotri against 24pc and 23pc at Guddu and Sukkur respectively in June.
But the story doesn’t end here. We create a mess by mismanaging whatever flows are available. There is greater need of introspection if requirements of the lower riparian and judicious water distribution within Sindh are to be met. We must seriously ponder over facts like why water losses between Sindh’s barrages are unusual. Losses should be more between Guddu-Sukkur than Sukkur-Kotri given their distances, but the situation is otherwise.
This indicates water theft, incorrect measurement, mismanagement in water distribution between Guddu-Sukkur and illegal pumping of water. Officials and informed growers agree water is diverted between Guddu-Sukkur. Rice cultivation is increasing fast in areas where it is banned. Being a high-delta crop it consumes more water than cotton. Has anyone checked why its cultivation in the cotton zone goes unnoticed, without punitive measures? It’s a dangerous trend. Sindh, with an impressive per acre cotton yield, will lose out if it’s not controlled.
Secondly, water provision has become exploitative in nature for small growers. Small farmers who can’t manage their lands for want of water are now selling them to big/political landowners, who then get direct outlets (DOs) sanctioned from the government for the same land. According to a veteran grower, Abdul Majeed Nizamani, a watercourse with one cusec flow irrigates 350 acres of land of multiple water users on average while a DO irrigates the land of an individual/family alone with no withdrawal limits.
Unabated sanctioning of DOs with fake reports is a chronic problem. In layman’s terms, a DO is a source of water allowed by the government from the main canal to favour an individual/family. DOs break water velocity and destroy the entire water regime of the canal. Such outlets are in the hundreds. This phenomenon is a major cause of water shortage.
The mismanagement is so ubiquitous that even Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah had to visit areas like Badin to assess water shortage, conceding that water regulation is unjust. He criticised the Sindh Irrigation and Drainage Authority. Sida was created to promote a participatory system in Sindh but it could not achieve its goals.
The people of Sindh suffer whether there is plenty of water on account of rains and floods or a shortage in the system. Experiences of the 2010 ‘super flood’ and 2011’s heavy rains are still fresh in their memory. Our irrigation system’s infrastructure is in bad shape. Canals are heavily silted and unable to carry water as per their designed capacity. Great technological advancements have been made in the water sector but the province has not benefited from these. We don’t even have the advantage of the telemetry system that provides accurate information about flows as it remains almost dysfunctional.
Weak water governance remains the fundamental issue. Efficient use of available water resources, solution of structural flaws and strict regulation are perhaps not amongst the priorities of the government, regardless of the fact that we are a water-stressed country.
Water resources will shrink if climate change warnings are anything to go by. Do we want to remain in a state of denial? It is depressing that water is released downstream Kotri and still cries of water shortage are heard. It’s time for Sindh to put its own house in order.
The writer is a senior reporter of Dawn.
Published in Dawn, September 2nd, 2014
