THE Punjab government’s contentious plans to build new canals to facilitate corporate farming in the province under the Green Pakistan Initiative in complete disregard for Sindh’s objections to the project have intensified the water conflict between the two provinces. The heat generated by the debate on the controversial scheme in the Senate on Tuesday is only a trailer of things to come unless a resolution of the conflict is found, and soon. The plan has already triggered protests across Sindh, bringing opposing political parties, civil society groups and nationalist organisations onto one platform to vehemently oppose it.
As the lowest riparian in the system, Sindh is rightfully worried about the new irrigation schemes due to insufficient water availability in the Indus basin system. On paper, as pointed out by a JUI-F senator during the debate, the 1991 Water Apportionment Accord has nearly 117 MAF water to distribute among the federating units, but in reality the water available in the system for apportionment is always far short of it. No wonder the Indus delta is struggling with the disastrous consequences of shrinking annual average ecological flow below Kotri Barrage, which has decreased to 14 MAF between 1999 and 2022 from 40.69 MAF between 1976 and 1998. Rapid climate change is exacerbating these shortages and their impact on agriculture and ecology of the province. Shortages apart, some of these schemes also face certain legal and technical issues since the water availability for these canals is not sanctioned in the 1991 accord. These issues could be overcome easily if surplus water was available in the system. But this is not the case, with climate change often resulting in lower-than-normal rainfall, causing drought or drought-like conditions across the country. Thus, the argument made by PML-N Senator Irfan Siddiqui in the upper house that the water accord permitted Punjab to build new canals using its permissible allocated share does not have a leg to stand on. The only way for the PML-N government to prevent this issue from getting out of hand is to heed the advice of lawmakers and others and bring the matter to the CCI for discussion and decision. Arbitrary decisions on such issues as the ones related to water sharing by the centre have done enough damage to interprovincial harmony. Continuation of this practice will further harm the federation.
Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2025
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