The executive committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) approved the National Drainage Programme (NDP) in 1997 at a cost of Rs31.4 billion with 67 per cent foreign exchange component of Rs21 billion.

Project cost in dollars was $785 million (equivalent to Rs47 billion at current rate of Rs 60.50 ) including $525 million as loan component. $260 million (Rs16 billion) was to be contributed by the provincial governments, the federal government and the farmers’ organization.The IBRD, the ADB, OECF and JBIC financed the loan, with the World Bank taking the lead. Time required for completion was six-and-a-half years starting July 1997,and ending December 2003. EIRR at 12 per cent discount rate was calculated at 20.1 per cent to justify the jinxed project.

The principal objectives of the project were to:

i. minimize saline drainable surplus; ii. evacuate saline effluent of Indus Basin to the Arabian Sea, and iii. ensure sustainability of irrigation system and improve operational efficiency of provincial irrigation departments through institutional reforms.

There were three major components of the programme:

Investment in physical infrastructure, institutional reforms and research studies. In physical terms, following works were to be undertaken: i. rehabilitation/extension of the existing and new surface drains (kms 10,000) ; ii. rehabilitation/replacement of the SGW tube wells (No.-1150); iii. transfer of FGW tube wells (No.—1500); iv. lining of watercourse in saline areas (No.— 1050); v. interceptor drain (kms—400); vi. biological drains (acres—40,000); vii. installation of tile drains (acres—250,000).

Among the objectives, an additional 11 million acres were to be brought under irrigation on completion of the project. It was stated that “benefits are expected to accrue from increased agriculture product through surface draining improvement/extension in an area of about 9 million acres. In addition, rehabilitation of the existing subsurface drainage system and new tile drains will improve drainage of about two million acres area”. Details of physical works are included in a tentative (why?) list of two pages in the PC-I (detailed document prepared to justify the project and to obtain its approval) and cover schemes like off-farm drainage and operation and maintenance (O&M), on-farm drainage, modernization of selected canal commands,etc.

The programme envisaged a new approach because efficient performance of the drainage sub-sector could not be “addressed alone through increased financial input”. The project was conceived as an instrument for encouraging institutional and policy reforms and initiating changes in the legal and regulatory framework to allow farmers and the private sector to play their role in improving operation and maintenance of drainage facilities and make these more sustainable.

It also involved improving management of public expenditure and financing a portion of GOP’s current and planned investments to ease funding constraints. Indirect benefits included the improvement of environment and social economic conditions. The institutional reforms would also have long-term effect on sustainability of the irrigation and drainage system. After usual delays in implementation, the project got to an inauspicious start with a heavy component of studies, which are a condition precedent for any loan to materialize. Most of the expenditure is on expensive expatriates whose selection is as transparent as it can be. In spite of the fact that all funds have not been used commitment charges must have been paid on the entire amount. Interest during investment alone amounts to Rs2.9 billion, less than Rs2.3 billion spent so far on physical works. The project is dominated, according to an official study, by routine O&M activities and consultancies.

As many as 20 studies, are envisaged under sector planning and feasibility study, and as many as 10 for research.Five per cent of the total cost of the project or Rs1.6 billion is earmarked for studies and research. Vehicles, project preparation and interest add up to another Rs3.5b. Thus Rs5 billion or 1/6th of the total cost did not in any way enhance the physical infrastructure or its sustainability. Does some one really believe that necessary knowledge and skill are not available locally without having to pay for the expensive enterprise of taking a loan of $585 million?

The project has been an unmitigated disaster with only 7 per cent (Rs2.3 billion) worth physical works completed and 24 per cent (Rs6.6 billion) expenditure made. $118 million have been disbursed and $100 million spent.

The project has been in doldrums for the last one-and-a-half-year because it is under review. No budget has been provided but the studies continue unabated. Provincial governments are opposed to the project except for Sindh, which has interest only in funds necessary for their maintenance works, which ordinarily it itself should provide through effective recoveries of the water rate or ‘abiana’. Some left-over works of the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) in Sindh have also been completed. Balochistan has opted out of the NDP and the remaining three provinces are still on board. Pilot projects have been selected based on major canal systems e.g. Swat Canal, LCC East Faisalabad and Nara Canals in NWFP, Punjab and Sindh respectively.. The World Bank et al are ever keen with their cheque books to further their personal careers by saddling a third world country with a loan irrespective of the use to which it put it. Three-fourth of a billion dollars were lent to the Government of Pakistan in 1997 for a project conceived and designed by the World Bank ‘experts’, who did not have the vaguest idea of the situation obtaining on the ground. They were unaware of the cultural context, which was totally hostile to their hair-brained ideas of Water User Associations or the participatory management, a concept wholly unfamiliar at the national or provincial level.

The irrigation system, which had served us so well in the past, although in a mess like everything else, required fixing but not being thrown out like the proverbial baby along with the bathtub. What was at the heart of the problem was the quality of governance. Water rates were low and recovery was lower still and way behind either the demand or the need for repair of physical infrastructure. At present water requires almost 70 per cent subsidy from the state. The powerful landowners thrive at the cost of the tail-enders. Sound management principles had to be imposed on the provincial governments.

Salinity and water logging follow construction of dams and huge irrigation projects. Drainage, which should form an essential part of any irrigation project, costs five times as much and is therefore not provided initially. Once the money has been spent and the land devastated the World Bank pops up. The NDP was thrust lock stock and barrel on the unwilling government of Pakistan ever willing to pile up its debts.

One of the major components of the project was creation of autonomous bodies in place of provincial irrigation departments. Under pressure from the funding agencies all the provincial governments legislated, post haste, the creation of Provincial Irrigation Development Authorities (PIDAs). Nothing changed except the nomenclature and the pay package. What was not to change was the culture among the civil servants running the “reformed” PIDAs. Secretaries Irrigation assumed the additional charge of chairmen and new jobs were assigned to the same people. Things continued on course, downwards that is. These authorities were supposed to bring about a greater improvement in the maintenance of the irrigation system by increasing the recovery of water rates close to the market price of water.

Another buzzword was the Farmers’ Organizations to introduce participatory role of the consumers who were supposed to get organized into Water Users Association (WUAs) and control the distribution of water. Participation by water users will not result in the tail-enders taking control. Their chairmen are usually the same people who have always run the show. According to the London Economist, “One study of five WUAs in India found that 85 per cent of their executives had land holdings much larger than the average.” The World Bank-financed schemes do not increase the clout of the weak farmers

Water was to be treated as a tradable commodity.. As of now, water is virtually a free commodity and water rates are nowhere close to the price of supplying it. There is enormous wastage and our canals must be losing 70 per cent of the water before it gets to the consumer. Water is not an economic good alone. It is also a social good. The objectives of encouraging investment and the conservation, conflict with the need to protect the poor.

The maintenance of irrigation system has fallen behind and so has the recovery of water rates. Deteriorating standards of governance has guaranteed this outcome. Pakistan has one of the most expensive irrigation systems in the world and it was functioning satisfactorily long after the British had left. The causes of failure were not so much institutional as those of governance. Misplaced and wrong diagnoses resulted in wrong solutions. Tail-enders or the helpless farmers continue to be as helpless as they ever were given the rural power structure. Water, which the designers of the project intended the consumers to treat as property to be traded, continues to be used as before. The only beneficiary is the lending agencies and the people working in the PIDAs or the irrigation departments. The losers are the people of Pakistan who will pay back the loan with interest and the water users who have not benefited. A decision has reportedly been taken to revise the project from Rs31.4 billion to Rs25 billion. Date of completion has been extended to June 2004. $295 million, out of $785 million have been diverted to some other projects including Drought Emergency Programme and to the Chashma Right Bank Canal (CRBC) etc. Towards the fag end of the project it is not difficult to see that it has been a miserable failure and the entire expenditure may have gone down the drain, which incidentally was the main component of the programme as it was named. The amount borrowed will have to be paid by the future generations and the follies of the present generation will go unpunished. The legal and institutional framework, which was supposed to replace the existing infrastructure, is nowhere to be seen except on paper.

The sustainability of maintenance is nowhere in sight. The project will have to go to the Ecnec for revision with schedule delays and cost over-runs as necessary ingredients. And if history is any guide, the project will receive a fresh lease of life providing hope to the stakeholders, who should not be confused with farmers, but consultants, contractors and officials of the concerned departments.