The PPP has announced to hold a sit-in after protesting against ‘water theft’ and demanding their share of the resource from the federal government. Its Chairman Bilawal Bhutto accused the ruling Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) of deliberately creating a water crisis in Sindh.
Unfortunately, Sindh’s woes are a tale as old as time. Its highly integrated irrigation network – with 14 main canals and over 40,000 field channels – appears helpless against its acute water shortage. Farmers working in the lower regions have had to bear the brunt of the catastrophic water shortage.
According to Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources, the country is well on its way to water scarcity by 2025. Thus, such a decline in per capita availability (from 5000 m3 per annum to 1000 m3 per annum) and the drastic implications were well-expected. Seeking an end to the water shortage is one thing. However, politicising the matter just to play the provincial card is a different story altogether.
For years, the province has struggled with acute fresh water shortages and loss of land due to soil erosion. The reasons for the current crisis are multifold: some allege mismanagement of water, or decry the increase in illegal fish farms and large-scale irrigation along the Indus.
We cannot only blame federal government for not giving Sindh its due share of water. Why hasn’t the provincial administration implemented any viable land reforms? It is far easier to play the blame game than to genuinely pursue course corrections that matter. Modernising the WAA will surely pacify each province until a more equitable solution can be employed.
Saving mangroves (Sindh’s trees of life), checking the release of untreated sewage and re-orienting urbanisation plans, for instance, are some of the much-needed starting points. A water policy that is people-centric at its core and takes the current context of the province into mind is the need of the hour.
