51. Pakistan's awareness of its vulnerability to its upstream neighbour for economic viability had grown during the period of formulating the treaty. Furthermore, its justification for acquiring the Kashmir valley also found credence with the signing of the treaty. The treaty has thus far safeguarded Pakistan's water requirements. It has faithfully served both the countries as a means of forestalling water-related disputes. And despite being the upper riparian state, India has never used it as a 'black mailing' tool in spite of two major wars and constant skirmishes.
52. Post-treaty, after 50 years, Pakistan can now argue that by submitting to man-made reservoir water, which has inherent complications, Pakistan has accepted an unjust principle of replacing perennial stream water. But it has to be borne in mind that had it not been for the treaty, Pakistan would have been forced to remain in eternal conflict with its neighbour. Pakistan still has a solution in hand by improving the management of water resources and developing new projects, though it involves huge capital outlay.
Water Situation in Pakistan
53. Background. In Pakistan, although about 88 percent of water is used in the agriculture sector, the industry, commerce and public health are also greatly affected by the quantity and quality of the available water. Per capita availability of surface water has been gradually dwindling in Pakistan from 5300 cubic meters in 1951 to 1300 cubic meters in 2002. It is projected that by 2007, per capita availability of surface water may hit 1000 cubic meters, which is a threshold for defining 'a water short country'.
54. Pakistan's economy mainly depends upon agriculture. It is the single largest sector and accounts for 24 percent of the GDP and employs 48.4 percent of the total workforce. Over 70 percent of its exports rely upon agricultural-based products. Water is the mainstay of agriculture. Irrigated agriculture provides 90 percent of food and fiber requirements from about 42.5 million acres which is around 80 per cent of the cultivated area, while the remaining is contributed by over 10 million acres of 'barani' (rain-fed) land.
55. Pakistan has a total geographical area of 196 million acres out of which 77.1 million acres is suitable for agriculture. A total of 54.5 million acres (71 per cent) out of the total agricultural land is already cultivated either by irrigation or through rain. The remaining 22.6 million acres of land which constitutes 29 percent of the total area suitable for agriculture can become productive if water is made available for irrigation.
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It means that a little less than 1/3rd of the agricultural potential of Pakistan remains untapped because of non-development of water resources and associated infrastructure.
56. Water sector industry of Pakistan is the largest enterprise accounting for approximately US $300 billion of infrastructural investment and contributing about US $ 16 billion annually to the GDP of the country. Irrigated area of Pakistan has enhanced from 20.7 MAc in 1947 to 42.5 MAc in 2000 due to construction of a large number of irrigation works since independence. As a result, Pakistan now has the largest contiguous irrigated area of the world. The Indus River Basin System has three (3) multipurpose dams / reservoirs, nineteen (19) barrages, twelve (12) link canals and forty-five (45) independent main canal commands.
57. Population growth, rapid urbanisation and industrialisation are imposing growing demands and pressures on water. The rising imbalance between supply and demand has led to shortages and unhealthy competition leading to inter-provincial tension, environmental degradation in the form of persistent water logging in certain areas and rapid decline of groundwater levels in other areas. Intrusion of saline water into fresh groundwater aquifer is another problem caused by excessive and imbalanced pumping.
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58. Besides irrigated-agriculture usages, water plays an intrinsic role in many other sectors such as domestic, industrial, mining, livestock, fisheries development, etc. Hydropower is the cheapest and environmentally the cleanest way of generating electricity. Its abundant potential in Pakistan has to be developed on a priority basis if the current trend of rising power tariff is to be reversed.
Comparative Status of Development of Water Resources
Item
Pakistan
India
Ratio
Population
140 Million
1016 Million
1 : 7
Irrigated Area by Canals and Tube Wells
42 Million Acres
221 Million Acres
1 : 5
Large Dams
68
4192
1 : 62
Hydropower
5,009 MW
21,891 MW
1 : 4
Canal Diversions
104 MAF
460 MAF
1 : 4
T22222222 222able 1: COMPARATIVE US OVELO282ES22OURCES
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Irrigation System in Pakistan
59. Independence. At independence, the irrigation system, conceived originally as a whole, was divided between India and Pakistan without regard to irrigated boundaries. This resulted in the creation of an international water dispute in 1948, which was finally resolved by the enforcement of Indus Waters Treaty in 1960 under aegis of the World Bank. After partition, Kotri, Taunsa and Guddu Barrages were completed on the Indus River to provide controlled irrigation to areas previously served by inundation canals. Also, three additional inter-river link canals were built prior to the initiation of Indus Basin Project.
60. Indus Basin Irrigation System. The Indus Basin Irrigation System comprises of three major reservoirs, 16 barrages, two head-works, two siphons across major rivers, 12 inter river link canals, 44 canal systems (23 in Punjab, 14 in Sindh, five in NWFP and two in Balochistan) and more than 1,07,000 water courses. The aggregate length of the canals is about 56,073 Km. In addition, the watercourses, farm channels and field ditches cover another 1.6 million Km. Typical watercourse commands range between 200 and 800 acres. The system utilises over 41.6 MAF of groundwater, pumped through more than 550,000 tube wells, in addition to the canal supplies. Outside the Indus Basin, there are smaller river basins, which drain directly to the sea. The total amount inflow of both is less than 4 MAF annually. These streams are flashy in nature and do
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not have a perennial supply. About 25% of their inflow is used for flood irrigation. Currently the total annual surface water diversions at the canal heads of the Indus Basin irrigation system are about 105 MAF.
61. Irrigation System. Irrigated agriculture is the major user of both, surface and groundwater resources of Pakistan. The average annual river diversions for irrigation in the Indus Basin are of the order of 104.7 MAF, to irrigate over 14.6 million hectares. Of this, 67.11 MAF on average are diverted during the kharif period, while 37.63 MAF are diverted during the rabi period. During the kharif periods of the last ten years, Punjab used 34.3 MAF annually; while Sindh and Balochistan used 31.4 MAF and NWFP used 2.35 MAF. During the rabi periods of the last ten years, average withdrawals by Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan and NWFP were 19.87 MAF, 16.06 MAF and 1.46 MAF, respectively. A further 41.6 MAF is pumped annually from the groundwater reservoirs, of which more than 90% is used for irrigation.
62. Distribution of Area and Water. During the year 1999-2000, the total irrigated area from all the sources including private canals, schemes, wells and tube wells and publicly owned infrastructure was of the order of 18.06 million hectares. About 77.4% of the total irrigated area of Pakistan falls in Punjab, 2.8% area falls in NWFP and 19.8% in Sindh / 26 Balochistan. Based on the statistics of the last 10 years, the area irrigated by canals has increased slowly by an aggregate of 6% but its share in
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irrigated area has remained constant due to the continuous increase in the number of tube wells which now irrigate 20% more area than 10 years ago..0 CIATION OF
Water Resources
63. Water in Pakistan is becoming scarce, while major parts of conventional water resources have already been developed. In order to meet the needs of growing population for water supply and sanitation, food and fiber, industry and environment, the conservation of this precious resource and development of next-generation water resource projects would be essential. The cost of these projects is likely to be higher than the cost of projects relatively simpler already completed. Achieving sustainable
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development will, thus, be a major challenge in the 21st century. The major exploitable water resources of Pakistan are:-
(a) Surface Water.
(i) River Flows.
(ii) Rainfall.
(b) Ground water.
(i) Useable Groundwater Aquifers.
(ii) Useable Layers Overlying Saline Water.
Projected Water Requirements
64. Population of Pakistan stands at 145 million and is likely to increase rapidly. Projected food requirements have been estimated based upon population growth and the requisite caloric needs. The per capita consumption of food and fibre,
thus, calculated, indicates the projected water requirements at the farm gate, as depicted below :-
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Water Requirements According to Population
Sectors
Existing Water Use
2003 (MAF)
Projected Requirement
Year 2025 (MAF)
Additional Requirement
(MAF)
Agriculture at the Farmgate
100
128
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Municipal and Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Environment
5.8
12.2
6.4
Industry
2.2
4.8
2.6
Total
108
145
37
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Pakistani Concerns
65. Pakistan - much like Egypt - is a country built around a single river system. Securing its water supply is a central, existential challenge which has been a high priority for every government of Pakistan. Pakistan's water security is now under a series of unprecedented threats.
66. Threat One comes from rapid internal population growth. At Partition there was 5,000 cubic metres of water for every Pakistani. Today the population is five times the size, and availability is down to 1,000 cubic metres per person, well below the globally-accepted threshold for water scarcity. As the pie shrinks so do long-simmering conflicts among Pakistan's provinces over water.
67. Threat Two comes from poor water management in Pakistan, with low agricultural productivity per unit of water, and substantial quantities of land and water rendered unusable due to salinity.
68. Threat Three comes from climate change. Of all the great rivers that rise in the Himalayas, the Indus is unique in that it is a river in a low-rainfall area. Whereas the snowmelt contributes only 8% of the flow of the Ganges and 12% of the flow of the Yangtze, it contributes 45% of the flow of the Indus. While the glaciers of the Himalayas will not, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change infamously claimed, be gone by 2035, there is no doubt that climate change and changes in glacial formation
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and snowmelt in the Himalayas constitute a huge threat to the water security of Pakistan.
69. Threat Four comes because such a large proportion of Pakistan's water comes from its neighbours. The Kabul river contributes 20% of the flow of the Indus. There is no treaty with Afghanistan, which has ambitious plans to develop the resources of this river. And then, of course, there is the Indus, and the now-vulnerable Indus Waters Treaty.
Pakistan's Apprehension about Water Security
70. At a seminar in Karachi in the last week of December 2001, the only occasion when tensions rose, was when someone alleged that the Indian government had plans to use the water as a weapon. A participant warned that any conflict over water would lead to Pakistan using nuclear weapons on a first strike basis against India.
71. A month and half later, on February 8, 2002, the editorial of Jang, a moderate Urdu daily, said that Pakistan's water scarcity could threaten relations between provinces and lead to a nuclear war against India. Since then, a lively debate has ensued in the Pakistani press, which continues till date with the President, Prime Minister, senior army officers and leaders of various Kashmiri groups offering their views underlining the centrality of water in India-Pakistan relations.
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72. Syed Salahuddin, Commander-in-Chief of HUM was quoted in Ausaf on June 18, 2002: "Kashmir is the source from where all of Pakistan's water resources originate. If Pakistan loses its battle against India, it will become a desert." Since then, in most public meetings that Salahuddin has addressed, he has emphasised that Kashmiri freedom fighters were actually fighting for Pakistan to enable it to gain control over Kashmir's rivers.
73. Sardar Sikandar Hayat, Prime Minister of PoK, said in a seminar on March 6, 2003 : "Without the rivers of Kashmir, Pakistan will become a desert. The freedom fighters of Kashmir are in reality fighting for Pakistan's water security and have prevented India from constructing a dam on the Wullar barrage."
74. Finally, on March 27, 2003, a senior officer of the Pakistan army, Lt General Zarar Azim, the then Corps Commander of Lahore, was quoted in Khabrain, a newspaper known for its proximity to ISI, saying: "Kashmir is our lifeline and its importance increases in view of our water security".
75. This general picture is well understood in Pakistan, both technically and viscerally. Because of these deep visceral concerns, it was obvious that sooner or later extreme groups in Pakistan would latch on to "the water issue" and particularly the Indian connection to Pakistani water insecurity. So Lashkar-e-Taiba leader Hafiz Saeed has become vocal about the Indian role and rails about blowing up the Baglihar Dam. And much of Pakistan's conspiracy-driven press latches on to the "India is stealing our
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water" theme. Both because the vulnerability is real and because of its explosiveness inside Pakistan, water has become a major security concern for Pakistan. It is reported that on a recent visit to Washington, Pakistan's army chief, General Kayani argued that water had replaced Kashmir as the primary non-military concern with India. However, Pakistan's failure to use surplus Indus flows resulted on the one hand in serious water and power shortages in the country, on the other it boomeranged against it. India finding the Indus Water Treaty neither terminable nor modifiable unilaterally came out with the idea of Treaty II.
