Imminent water scarcity

The criminal neglect of long term water conservation planning over past five decades coupled with the climate change impact will make Pakistan severely short of water. The quantum of rainfall has dropped from 1500 cubic meters to 1017 meter annually. The reports of UNDP and Pakistan Council of Research in Water envisage a warning that the country will be acutely short of water by 2025 and no individual will be then safe from the influence of this great crisis. One wishes that the tune of democracy harping political elite should have demonstrated the sagacity and selflessness by not abandoning the policy of water conservation of 1960s and should have invested in building big, medium and small dams.

 In Nawaz Sharif’s eras spending of trillions of rupees on motorways and metro bus projects was justified as the only yardstick of people’s prosperity. Unfortunately, the former PTI Chief Minister in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa while moving in the opposite direction of the vision of his leader Imran Khan launched BRT Peshawar which will devour over Rs.100. The widening of the existing dual carriage road and early completion of northern by-pass would have solved the problem of rush of vehicular traffic and the mass transit project should have been deferred. The taxpayers money wasted on this project could have been spent on small dams to conserve rains and flash flood water for irrigation and drinking water requirements in the arid areas of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa where the water table has gone down to 600 feet.

In its report of 2018 the World Economic Forum (WEF) declared water scarcity to be the biggest threat to the economy of Pakistan which causes colossal damage to the productivity of agriculture, quantum of exports and employment opportunities. As usual the political leadership did not consider this report worth consideration and the Supreme Court had to issue directives for the construction of water storage dams and Implementation Committee was constituted for launching of Mohamand and Diyamer Basha dams. Former Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar initiated donations drive for these dams. With this the powerful and well entrenched anti-dams lobby swung into action. PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and PML-N senior leader Ahsan Iqbal ridiculed this noble initiative of national interest. Political leaders tried to create a smoke screen and raised doubts about the funding of the dams by multilateral donors, ignoring that the Executive Committee of National Economic Council had already given approval for these mega project.

Pakistan is confronted with fast depleting water resources due to climate change impact and poor water resource management. Failure to estimate the actual water demand will affect effective water management and overall socio-economic indicator. The country has gone from water surplus to water stressed situation and soon it will land in a situation of water scarcity. The per capita water availability has reduced from approximately 5000 cubic meters to 100 cubic meters. Of the 10 percent available water storage substantial amount of water is wasted during industrial and domestic use. The construction of big dams takes almost 15 years for completion. Hence controlling the wastage while using it for irrigation and drinking purposes and construction of small dams can provide short term solution.