WATER, the lifeblood of agriculture, a sector that employs over 40 per cent of the country’s labour force and constitutes over 20 per cent to the GDP, is an ignored topic in this country. Beyond disputes with India over precious resources that flow through Kashmir and the domestic inability to build a large reservoir since Tarbela dam in the mid-1970s, successive governments have done little to improve water management in the country. This is a country that by all accounts is water-stressed.

On Saturday, A.N.G. Abbasi, a respected authority on water and former chairman of the Technical Committee on Water Resources, was so frustrated with the lack of progress on water-related issues in the country that, while addressing a seminar in Hyderabad, Mr Abbasi called for his report to be buried since no one in government seems interested in implementing it. The report that Mr Abbasi was referring to was the one drawn up by the Technical Committee and presented to the president and prime minister in August 2005. The report is detailed and goes into the minutiae of water management in the country; unfortunately, it became embroiled in Gen Musharraf’s bid to build the Kalabagh dam and the rest is an altogether familiar history of neglect. As Mr Abbasi said on Saturday: ‘I think those in power don’t value the importance of water and we don’t realise our past mistakes as well.’

The A.N.G. Abbasi report is a valuable document because it is a detailed study of many of the country’s water problems and it proposes solutions. For example, the report recommends that a flow of 5,000 cusecs be allowed below Kotri throughout the year to check seawater intrusion, meet the need of fisheries, maintain the river channels and for environmental sustainability. Given the fierce inter- and intra-provincial politics that surround water, some of the recommendations are sure to be disputed. But the point ought to be to have the debate and then move on to the solution-implementation mode. It should not be the case that, as Mr Abbasi averred, ‘We are adamant that these mistakes should not be rectified.’