AN acute shortage of water is set to play havoc with Pakistan’s crops. According to the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) the country will face a shortage of 35-40 per cent in the upcoming rabi (winter) season, threatening the wheat crop, which is critical to the country’s food security. To stave off a food crisis next year, Irsa has demanded that the two largest consumers of irrigation water — Sindh and Punjab — reduce their indents in the current last days of the kharif (summer) season. The provinces have been reluctant to accede to Irsa’s demand because reducing the water supplied to the rice and cotton crops in the crucial last watering period will dent the output of those crops, which are critical to Pakistan’s economy. Sindh and Punjab argue that nature may yet intervene to supply more water for the wheat crop this winter. Irsa has prevailed over Sindh but Punjab is resisting. The Punjab resistance is based on a shrewd calculation. Irsa wants Punjab to reduce its current indent from Tarbela dam and take extra water from Mangla; however, the canal system is such that a higher water level in Mangla will benefit Punjab more this winter than a higher level in Tarbela.

The current crisis, while grave, is only a symptom of a deeper malaise: the lack of water planning in the country. The current water crisis has been triggered by unusually low temperatures in the Northern Areas which has reduced the flow in rivers. However, that is precisely what long-term water planning accommodates for: seasonal fluctuations and a buffer for unexpected dry spells. As far back as 1976, when Tarbela was completed, it was estimated that Pakistan needed a new dam of Tarbela’s size — the world’s largest earth- and rock-filled dam — every seven years to meet its water requirements. Thirty-two years on, not a single comparable dam has been built. The blame lies squarely on the shoulders of Pakistan’s ruling elite. Water is quite literally the lifeblood of Pakistan. Agriculture accounts for 20 per cent of the country’s GDP and employs 40 per cent of Pakistan’s labour force. What Pakistan desperately needs are two things: a national water policy and immediate implementation of that policy.