Welcome to Naseer Memon's Corner

ONCE again, barrages in Sindh and Balochistan are facing a crisis. In the second week of June, the Guddu and Kotri barrages received 30 per cent and 60pc less water, respectively, than their due share under the 1991 water apportionment accord. Kharif sowing is at its peak and, under a baking sun, Sindh’s growers are on the roads demanding water for their crops. At one point, in the first week of June, the flow at Guddu was only 74,500 cusecs, against an allocation of 108,340 cusecs for Sindh and Balochistan. 

The issue of new canals in the Indus Basin has been resolved through consensus and dialogue among the federating units.

On April 28, a meeting of the Council of Common Interests was attended by Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan Engr Amir Muqam and the provincial chief ministers.

The meeting endorsed the federal 

Two recent reports have revealed alarming data on rapidly worsening water balance of the world. United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health has just released a startling report: Living Beyond our Hydrological Means in the Post-Crisis Era. Prior to this, World Bank had released a report: Continental Drying: A Threat to Our Common Future. Both these reports paint a grim picture of global freshwater inventories.

It took longer than four decades for the federating units in Pakistan to reach an agreement on inter-provincial apportionment of river flows (in 1991). The implementation, monitoring and regulation of the agreed water distribution was then assigned to a body created specifically for the purpose. The Indus River System Authority was created through an Act of Parliament (Act No XXII of 1992). The most important feature of the IRSA is its federal character. The Act provided for representation of all provinces as stakeholders in Indus waters.

THE Indus River System Authority has declared a modest 15 per cent water shortfall in the Indus system this kharif season. Irsa’s advisory committee took this decision at a time when storage in reservoirs was at its highest point in five years in the first week of April. Water availability in the rivers and dams this year is far better than it was last year when Irsa had to declare a 43pc shortfall in April 2025 due to severe drought. Irsa had to restrict water availability to drinking needs in that month.

CONFLICT over the waters of the Indus is more than a century old.

British-era documents provide evidence that Sindh — when it was governed by Bombay — protested against the waters’ upstream diversion through a series of projects in the Punjab. The Bombay administration always viewed upstream diversion as detrimental to Sindh’s share, and argued against the construction of the Thal and Haveli canals in the 1920s.

SINDH comprises 18 per cent of Pakistan’s land mass and 16pc of its total cultivable area.

While the agricultural sector is the lynchpin of the provincial economy, Sindh also contributes about 23pc to the country’s national agricultural value added: 41pc to the national output of rice, 31pc to sugarcane and 21pc to wheat. The rural communities and urban markets rely heavily on the performance of this integral sector.

THE first phase of the Cholistan Canal project has stirred fresh acrimony between Sindh and Punjab. Sindh’s government, political parties and civil society are denouncing the project. The criticism has found expression in protest rallies, sit-ins and seminars in the province. Sindh’s chief minister and irrigation minister have condemned the project in unambiguous terms. But despite this criticism from the PPP-led provincial government itself, the project was endorsed by the president, the former PPP co-chairperson, in July this year, drawing the ire of the public.

THE Indus River System Authority is again in the spotlight. Following in the footsteps of the previous caretaker government, the present regime is also, most painstakingly, working on amending the Irsa Act, 1992. The caretaker government managed an ordinance to amend the Act in February 2024. Former president Arif Alvi declined to sign off on the ordinance and issued a note of objection. However, it became a constitutional fait accompli after the Prime Minister’s Office resubmitted it. Subsequently, its proponents managed to get a former Wapda chairman, known to be a staunch advocate of the controversial proposed Kalabagh dam, notified as the new Irsa chairman. 

WHILE ‘Form 47’ continues to be the talk of the town, ‘Gate 47’ is generating a very different kind of buzz in Sindh.

For context, on June 20, Gate Number 47 of Sukkur Barrage suddenly collapsed, leaving Sindh’s irrigation system in a lurch. Water diversion to seven canals had to be curtailed at a time when irrigation demand for Kharif crops was peaking in the province. As a result, there has been considerable consternation among growers as their rice, cotton and sugarcane crops need water.

Sukkur Barrage forms the spine of Sindh’s agriculture economy, irrigating 80 per cent of all agricultural land in the province. 

IN a significant move, President Arif Alvi has refused to approve a contentious summary that seeks to restructure the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) Act 1992. The proposal restricts the water regulator’s decision-making powers, reduces provincial representation and empowers a non-member chairman in terms of technical, administrative and financial autonomy. Hitherto, the post of the authority’s chairperson is assumed by one of the members on a rotational basis. In its present construct, Irsa is a federal structure comprising representatives from the provinces and the centre. Every year, a member heads the body as envisaged in the Irsa Act 1992, and matters of conflict are resolved through a voting process.

PRACTISING intensive irrigation, having a flat topography and being located at the tail of the river basin, Sindh needs an efficient drainage network. It has a sprawling network spread over three barrages, 14 main canals and 106 branch canals to cater to a canal command area of 12.8 million acres (5.6m hectares). But a major challenge for Sindh is its poor natural gradient of six inches per mile (9.5 centimetres per kilometre). This is the main reason for waterlogging and salinity in the irrigated belt.

The Sukkur Barrage, constructed in 1932, shaped the sociology and economy of Sindh. The barrage feeds seven main canals. The designers of this gigantic irrigation system knew that a perennial sheet of water would keep the soil moist throughout the year.

The country is threatened by an excruciating drought. The Advisory Committee of Indus River System Authority has estimated water shortage for April at 43 percent. The IRSA will monitor the situation on monthly basis. These shortfalls restrict canal flows and leave the croplands parched.

In the third week of March, the Pakistan Meteorological Department issued a drought alert. The projection revealed a precipitation scenario. The country had received 40 percent less rainfall than normal in the preceding months. Sindh was the driest province with 62 percent below normal rainfall. The Punjab and Balochistan had received 38 percent and 52 percent less rain between September 1 and March 24. 

SINCE Pakistan is located in a region prone to severe climate change impacts, the entire water sector management regime should be revisited in the light of the emerging phenomenon.

Climate change will have significant impacts on water resources in the region, requiring a review of all water engineering projects. Projects like large dams on the Indus River system must be based on a thorough understanding and research on climate change impacts.

This may call for searching more viable options for water conservation. Another dimension may be added to the conflicts on water distribution among the stake holders, if the right option is not exercised by policy makers.

A World Bank Inspection Panel has acknowledged serious flaws in planning, design, execution and supervision of the much criticized mega projects Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) and National Drainage Programme (NDP).

The LBOD project commenced on December 13, 1984 with an WorldBank/IDA credit of $150 million. The approved PC-1 cost of project was estimated at over Rs8.5 billion, which ended up with over Rs31 billion leaving behind a tragic trail of engineering, environmental, human and socio-economic failures.

In a madcap world seized with arms race for decimation of humanity, little attention is dedicated to water for sustaining life. Swelling numbers of humans pose an existential threat to a finite resource. Agriculture, energy, industrialisation and urbanisation drain much of the water at the expense of nature’s own survival.

As more water is being diverted to meet the greed of human race, nature’s own thirst is left unquenched. As a corollary, forests and pastures are vanishing and the earth is losing its green cloak. Concomitant to that, an irresponsible and unsustainable use of water is also shrinking the blue cover of earth. Rivers, wetlands, lakes and oceans are getting perennially polluted.

Each time a flood hits Pakistan, a demand for Kalabagh Dam is resuscitated. An illusion has been postulated that the Kalabagh dam is a panacea for all problems of Pakistan including floods, droughts, avalanches and glacial lake bursts.

The lobby perennially obsessed with the dam has conjured up an image of the dam as the eternal and only bulwark against every hydro-climatic catastrophe. Simpletons owing their wisdom to the polymath tv anchors insinuate every opponent of the dam as enemy of the country. 

Recently, a serving chairman of Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda), launched a campaign in favour of the Kalabagh Dam. His article ‘Kalabagh Dam -- sifting facts from fiction’ was published in newspapers in many parts.

Zafar Mahmood, who has now resigned as chairman Wapda, brought to the fore several facts but left several facts untold. It was unbecoming for the head of Wapda to use his official position to lend favour to a project that has been repudiated by the elected assemblies and people of three provinces. They were forced to think that, perhaps, only an official from Punjab could enjoy this liberty.

IN a knee-jerk reaction to the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, the campaign for new dams has been resuscitated. The prime minister, too, has emphasised the need for new dams.

However, an essential condition for dam construction is surplus water. Contrary to claims that water is wasted as it enters the sea, flows in the Indus river system are plummeting. Flow patterns during 1976-2000 and 2001-2024 exhibit contradictory patterns in the Indus basin rivers. A look at the flow pattern at four critical points sheds more light.  

The Council of Common Interests halts the new canals project until after ‘mutual understanding’ is reached among the provinces.

The issue of new canals in the Indus Basin has been resolved through consensus and dialogue among the federating units.

On April 28, a meeting of the Council of Common Interests was attended by Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan Engr Amir Muqam and the provincial chief ministers.

On April 17, the Punjab government announced a major support package for farmers.

The announcement followed protest demonstrations by farmers in the Punjab and Sindh. Voices against new canals in Indus River system and development of new command areas for corporate farming have transcended the provincial boundaries. Several political parties have started organising protests in support of the farming community.

Last week, the Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee organised protests in 30 towns and cities, including Islamabad, Lahore,

THE Council of Common Interests (CCI) while dousing interprovincial tensions over the planned Cholistan canal project, also underlined the need for a long-term solution to the use of water by all provinces, in line with the Water Apportionment Accord, 1991, and the National Water Policy, 2018. Had these two documents been embraced in letter and spirit, the recent tensions between Sindh and Punjab need not have occurred. The National Water Policy is an elaborate document that can be used to set the direction of projects in the water sector.

The policy emphatically calls for the implementation of the 1991 accord under the section on ‘Policy objectives’.