BAHAWALPUR: Cholistan is facing drought-like conditions because of the lack of rains within the desert boundaries in the jurisdictions of Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar and Rahim Yar Khan districts.

According to details, no rainfall was recorded since the summer of 2025, with the dwellers of the Cholistan desert facing an acute shortage of drinking water for themselves and their animals.

Locals told Dawn that drinking water had dried up at the hundreds of open ponds called tobas. They said that the most worrying aspect was that in the prevailing dry spell, grazing fields comprising bushes and grass at the meadows had also dried up.

This, they said, had created a shortage of fodder for their livestock. They said that men, women and children had to undertake long and arduous journeys to fetch drinking water from far-off places.

Dry spell has dried up 90pc of 1,200 ponds in the area; CDA claims situation under control

Dawn learnt that in Cholistan’s catchment areas there were about 1,200 open water ponds, which were last recharged with rainwater during May-June, 2025 rains. The locals were meeting their water needs from these ponds for the past many months. Presently, however, ninety percent tobas had dried up creating a drinking water shortage for the local population scattered in the vast desert. In addition, the grazing areas for the animals had also shrunk significantly.

This has forced a large number of the local residents to migrate from their homes, which were mostly around the filled-up tobas, before their usual migration cycles due to this change in weather pattern.

However, the officials of the Bahawalpur Cholistan Development Authority (CDA) claimed that the situation was under control and drinking water for humans as well as their livestock was available. They claimed that there was no cause of concern even during the coming months.

CDA Managing Director (MD) Tariq Mahmood Bokhari could not be contacted directly, however, a CDA official told Dawn that on MD’s orders, canal water was being supplied through CDA’s pipeline network round the clock at all water outlets in Cholistan. In addition, the official claimed that those residents who had contacted the CDA were being provided water through large water tankers.

He was hopeful that the situation would not deteriorate further in the coming months, when the migrant residents of the area were expected to return during the incoming spring season.

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2026