KARACHI, June 19: A leading water expert has said that unless a criterion for the operation of the water reservoirs and link canals is set and the Water Accord 1991 is religiously followed, the water availability situation in Sindh would continue to turn from bad to worse.

The expert, Dr Sikandar Brohi, was speaking on Monday on “Shortage of Irrigation Water and Its Remedies”, at the lecture programme organised by the Pakistan People’s Party at its central secretariat here. Former agriculture minister MNA Nawab Yousuf Talpur presided over the sitting. It was the second lecture of the series.

Dr Brohi regretted that right at the time when farmers, especially those of the lower regions, critically needed water, the supplies were stopped in order to fill up reservoirs. Even after filling them up, the authorities did not resume the supplies and the overflowing water was allowed to go waste. Similarly, the apportionments to the provinces and the flows in two link canals were being controlled most arbitrarily ever since the country had gone under the military rule.

Giving actual figures of water requirement and future commitments, Dr Brohi pointed out that the figure had gone as high as 156 MAF. “And even if we go by the illogical average annual water flow figure of 138 MAF, we are going to face an annual shortage of 18 MAF. Any dam on the Indus, even if it is constructed, can never be filled up.”

He strongly advocated evolving a criterion for the use of underground water resources as well. He pointed out that the crisis was acute in Balochistan where indiscriminate pumping of underground water by influential political figures had pushed the ground water level to as low as 400 feet below the surface.

Speaking about remedial measures, Dr Brohi said it was the basic fact that due to many drawbacks in the irrigation system, the agriculture sector was able to utilise only 35 per cent of the actual supplies. This, he maintained, indicated the potential that existed for meeting the shortages through modern scientific methods.

Lining of minors and water courses could save us water equivalent to at least three dams at a fractional cost besides retrieving millions of acres of land already gone waste due to the problems of waterlogging and salinity. If enough water is saved, adequate supplies for ensuring the outflows to the sea and saving the delta and kutcha areas can also be ensured.

De-silting of reservoirs, check dams, collection of rain water, laser levelling of fields, drip irrigation for root zones of plants, shifting to less water-intensive crops, recycling of used water, effective population control are some of other remedies, according to Dr Brohi.

Similarly, in the power sector, checking theft and line losses, using wind energy in coastal areas and Thar, development of the coal plant and nuclear power plants may easily make Pakistan an energy surplus country.

In his remarks, Nawab Yousuf Talpur pointed out that the government of Benazir Bhutto had signed an agreement with an American company to line 8,000 watercourses and 3,500 kilometres of minors every year. Had this been followed up, all the water courses and minors would have been lined in less than 10 years and Pakistan would have been a water surplus country by now, he claimed.

The subsequent government opted for cancelling the agreement and paying large sums in damages rather than allowing contractors to complete their job. Now when the crisis has deepened and the cost multiplied, the present government has once again started the lining work. According to him, on account of rampant corruption and bad quality work, the entire allocation is going waste.