In the third week of July, 2010, the Indus Water Commission has agreed in principle to install telemetry system on the Indus river system as a confidence building measure (CBM) for transparent and real time water transactions between India and Pakistan. In principle, it is the positive outcome of the just concluded talks between the two Indus Water Commissioners in Lahore.

If the proposed telemetry is properly installed and operated, either by a third party or jointly, this intervention will go a long way to restore trust and minimise uncertainty and confusion over water transactions between the two countries that share the Indus Basin.

However, national and international experience regarding the use of telemetry system for water transaction between two countries or, for that matter, different regions of one country is not very encouraging. Here we intend to expose and explore the real reasons that create controversies about the use of the telemetry system in the choice area.

After the floods of 1988, Pakistan decided to install a telemetry system at key points of the Indus River and its tributaries. With the UN support, the system came on board in the early nineties. Since its installation, it keeps providing valuable real time data about flood monitoring and forecasting. So far, no one has expressed any mistrust about the functionality of the hardware. Again in Pakistan, under Wapda's Snow & Ice Hydrology Project, a telemetry system has functioned successfully at 17 points in our mountainous zone for over a decade.

No one has expressed any mistrust about the usefulness of telemetry system itself because both project uses were purely technical in nature and the data generated did not discriminate or hit vested interests of any region or users.

These two examples show that mistrust or trust about the telemetry system has potential linkage with its use in areas where either conflicts of interests abound or remain bare minimum. To probe this hypothesis further, we need to look at local experiences of the telemetry system in water distribution as well.

When the government decided to install the SCADA system at critical points along the Indus river network for monitoring water distribution to different provinces, each province was given an option to equip one canal system to observe water distribution at a canal command level as well. In Sindh, this system is already operational.

Since the government of Sindh was quicker in establishing Farmer Organisations (FOs) and Area Water Boards (AWBs), Sindh Irrigation and Drainage Authority (SIDA) installed the telemetry system on the Twin Jamrao Head Regulator.

According to an article presented in 2004 by a SIDA officials, Dr Mumtaz Ahmed Sohag and Ali Asghar Mahessar, the real time data of the telemetry system are readily available for the SIDA office in Hyderabad and Nara Canal Area Water Board in Mirpurkhas to ensure fair water distribution at this canal level.

Punjab Irrigation and Drainage Authority (PIDA) seems even more convinced about the usefulness of telemetry system for eliminating human error and discretion to achieve an equitable and sustainable water distribution within a command area of 3.1 million acres of the Lower Chenab Canal (LCC). The project was launched to cover 23 critical points of the canal system of four sub-main canals and 445 distributaries.

But the same telemetry system is yet to be made operational on one pretext or other, at the national level. Why does a system that is so much desired at the provincial levels becomes a source of mistrust and conflict at national level? Perhaps it has something to do with what this technology can expose that goes on in the business of water transactions.

The misgivings about the telemetry system are a mere symptom of a deep-rooted mistrust, vested interest and manipulation that exist between the four provinces about water transactions itself. Unless we dare to change this mindset and hidden agendas, Pakistan's enormous hydro-potential will not be realised.

However in a federation, these types of controversies are bound to happen because of political losses and gains. Because of the sensitive nature of water distribution, even some unitary governments face similar mistrust.

In developed countries, water supply networks are fully equipped with multi-function telemetry systems. Telemetry system installed by the federal government is counter checked by irrigation districts or companies by installing their own similar systems. Fortunately, Pakistan is not very far behind. With its watershed forecasting and flood warning telemetry systems in place, things are moving fast for the use of the same technology for water distribution.

Punjab claims to have a multifunctional telemetric apparatus to monitor and forecast weather, capacity to determine irrigation requirements by connecting it to the meteorological office along with the usual reporting of water levels and quantities on a real time basis. In the near future, if conducive conditions are created, we should have the entire Indus river basin managed with real time accurate data.

However, the current use of telemetry system in Punjab and Sindh on selected canals appears to merely be a hydro-political gimmick or at the very best, for demonstration purposes only. How this technology gets internalised, with changed rule, roles, rights and responsibilities, is nowhere in sight yet.

As a matter of fact, it will be interesting to find out if these installations are still even functional at this point and time. Unless we create such conditions that eliminate rent-seeking behaviour of water distributors, it does not seem logical that such technology will be allowed to function for sensitive matters like water distribution; be it a canal that serves many secondary canals or rivers that deliver water to different provinces. This can be facilitated if the provincial system is counter-checked by telemetry system by farmers' organisations at canal level and federal system is verified by regional telemetry systems by each province.

Moving up to the Indus river system, the use of telemetry system has a much better chance to succeed as the water distribution between India and Pakistan is not based on sharing flows of all rivers (to a greater extent) but instead on the divided rivers within the Indus basin.

If India is not siphoning outflows of the three western rivers, it would be in any case very hard to hide such malpractice, or the intent to do so; any temptation and craving to disrupt the functioning of a telemetry system will be not as steep and excessive as one can expect while distributing water from one province to another or from a secondary canal to another. However, when relations become tense between India and Pakistan, the telemetry system is expected to be the first victim as water can be used as a whipping tool to squeeze favourable hydro-political results for India. This can be done by changing timing of river flows to Pakistan when water demand for agriculture will be at a peak or when the new cropping season starts. By making telemetry system dysfunctional, such flow manipulations could follow.

So, agreeing to mere installing telemetry system on Indus river system is not sufficient to achieve intended results. We must insist that these installations are either operated jointly or by an agreed third party to let this system become an ultimate confidence building measure in the implementation of Indus Water Treaty, in its true letter and spirit.

ms_shafique@hotmail.com