KARACHI, Oct 1: Secretary, Sindh Water Committee, Abrar Qazi, has termed the water sharing issue between Sindh and Punjab as most pressing one and called for a serious dialogue between the two provinces under the aegis of international bodies to find out a lasting solution.

He said that in the last three years, Punjab had experienced record bumper crop. In Pakistan’s history of 55 years, there were more than two million tons surplus wheat for export, and in the last year 150,000 acres more were brought under sugarcane cultivation and 150,000 more under paddy or rice. Both crops are water intensive.

“No where from Punjab we did hear a complaint of water shortage as was constantly being heard in Sindh,” Qazi told the conference on “Economic Development of Sindh,” organized by the Dawn Group of Newspapers at a local hotel on Tuesday.

He blamed the central government and its agencies like Wapda and the Water Ministry for hurting the Sindh rather than safeguarding the interest of all the units of the federation.

Abrar said that Wapda chief says that Sindh allows 27 MAF to go waste to sea but does not allow six MAF to be stored in Kalabagh Dam.

But, he said, Wapda boss had failed to mention that in the last 79 years—1922-23 to 2001-2002 — a record 80 per cent water availability in the entire Indus River System was about 122 MAF. Out of these, if the provinces use the 114.35 MAF allocated to them in the 91 accord and 10 MAF is released to the sea, there would be a negative balance.

He said the central government and its agencies deny the allegations claiming that the water shortage is due to natural causes. Sindh has been facing water shortage for the last three years and cities and villages spread in the province have been clamouring for water even for drinking. On every single day for the past three years, there has been a protest rallies or strike for water somewhere or the other in the province.

There is an agreement between the provinces on apportionment of waters of the Indus River System which is called Indus Water Record 1991. Sindh had many objections to that Accord but the accord was accepted by all provinces. In 1994, Punjab presented a new formula of water sharing citing shortage of water in the system. However Sindh objected to it.

On September 29, 2002 it was decided that water will be allocated according to the historic allocations, meaning the 94 formula. The 94 formula is: if the total water is available in the Indus River System, say, 100 barrels and Punjab’s share in these, according to the 91 accord, is 40 barrels. If now due to natural causes, the total water available reduces from 100 to 98 barrels, Punjab’s share incredibly increases from 40 to 42 barrels. Therefore, in the years of natural shortage while overall quantity of water was reduced, Punjab has managed to in fact receive more water. No wonder then that Sindh does not have enough water to drink.

Besides water problem, Abrar said that another major concern of the people of Sindh is the transfer of resources and money from Sindh to Punjab. The illogical and unjust NFC awards based only on population and the system of subtraction of funds by the Central government at source has caused Sindh to be greatly impoverished.

He said it is time that emphasis should be shifted from creating to conserving water resources, dropping the idea of constructing Thal Canal and all intentions and plans of building mega storage dams at any place should be shelved.

Sindh Minister for Forest, Wildlife, Environment and Food Corporation, Hassan Ali Channio said Sindh has remained engulfed in water problem since the last three years. However, drought has resulted in some benefits for the province like ending of water logging and salinity and cultivation of deep rooted crop.

“Farmers have serious reservations on distribution of water,” he said adding that water shortage has been one of the most serious threat to the Sindh’s agriculture scenario. Water is the main input of any crop after diesel, fertilizer, seed, pesticides and power.

It was heartening to see that in the last cabinet meeting — Agriculture and Water ministries have come under one ministry.

In spite of water shortage, the minister painted a rosy picture for the Sindh agriculture as the province recorded a 2.5 million bales of cotton production as compared to 2-2.2 million bales in the last 18 years.

“We target five million bales cotton production in Sindh under the grow more cotton project,” Channio said.

He was of the view that it is time to go for value addition by exploiting other crops potential. Country’s seven billion exports are based on single cotton crop and so far 18 crops had been unexploited.

On other areas, he said people living in villages cannot export livestock, fruits and vegetables due to non-availability of any government institutions.

He said the Sindh government has prepared an integrated agriculture scheme aimed at providing daily and monthly income benefits to the farmers and growers.