ALMOST all parties now realise the critical role of agriculture in national development. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, pledges to continue down the same path.

The Pakistan People’s Party, more prone to pandering to rural voters, also has elaborate plans for its next stint in power. The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf is now promising to address the “agriculture emergency” if voted to power.

However, with the way things are going, the parties might want to consider declaring a “water emergency” before they do anything else on the agriculture front. The current water scenario is so alarming that it can change the very scope of agriculture, wreaking havoc on livestock and human lives.

The country has been in the grips of severe drought for the last few months, setting new records of abysmal river flows and reservoirs drying up. As the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) termed it, the country is in a “critical phase” as far as its water is concerned.

The current water scenario is so alarming that it can change the very scope of agriculture, wreaking havoc on livestock and human lives

According to Irsa, Pakistan had only 0.89 million acre feet (MAF) of water remaining in storage on July 2 as against 6.81 MAF on the same day last year; the 10-year average for the day stands at 6.2maf.

Last year, river inflows were recorded at 396,000 cusec, while this year they plummeted to 259,000 cusec. All calculations by Irsa and provincial experts, even after factoring in low activity, were grossly inaccurate for the first half (April-June) of the Kharif season.

They had anticipated a water shortage of 40 per cent during this period, but the provinces in the country faced upwards of 60pc shortage this season. Due to this poor availability, the national reservoirs have been empty for the last five months since Feb 25.

For the first time, there are chances that both dams may run dry completely; Mangla for sure and Tarbela as well probably. This situation has not emerged overnight but has developed over decades. According to the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources, Pakistan reached the “water stress line” in 1990.

It crossed the water scarcity line in 2005. It would go dry by 2025 if the present conditions persist. Pakistan would be the most water-stressed country in the region and 23rd in the world by 2040.

There have been plenty of reports by the World Bank, USAID and other agencies warning the country of this emerging disaster, which has now manifested itself fully. The Supreme Court of Pakistan has also begun highlighting the crisis to help parties find solutions.

Just last week the Supreme Court directed doubling the efforts to build the Diamer-Bhasha and Mohmand dams. Fortunately, the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) is already in the process of appointing consultants and finding contractors for both of them.

It may be suggested that the next government adopts a two-pronged policy approach: developing reservoirs and rationalising the use of current supplies. The main point of focus for the next government should be short-term measures that yield immediate results.

For that purpose, one proposal could be to deal with water-intensive crops like rice and sugarcane. They consume excessive water and are then exported at cheaper rates. If they can be reduced to domestic use only, the country may have some spare water.

There is then a whole range of on- and off-farm activities that could be used to rationalise water usage. Rain harvesting is one of them; farmers can spare some land on their farms to store rain water and utilise it at critical points of agriculture activity.

It would not only help agriculture but help replenish underground water as well. Punjab has been pumping some 35 MAF out every year but only 30 MAF is recharged; this difference of 5 MAF is disastrous for the underground aquifer levels, which have declined to the point of rendering pumping commercially nonviable.

These measures would require an elaborate regime of policy, rules and regulations, along with required financial incentives and massive political will to back them up. How far the next government succeeds, only the next five years will tell.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, July 9th, 2018