Tarbela Dam

Pakistan is an agricultural economy with its 70% population depending on agriculture, directly or indirectly. In Pakistan, half of the total workforce is earning bread through agriculture sector and this sector accounts for more than 24% of the country’s exports. Some of these simple statistics can elucidate the role of this sector in our economy.  The production in this sector relies on the fertility of land, seeds, fertilizer and most importantly on the availability of water. Though Earth consists of 70% of water still there is a huge scarcity of fresh water suitable for farming.

This scarcity of water has been the cause of many disputes across the world both in terms of inter-states and inter-provincial relations. South Asia has been the epicenter of such water disputes; whether we study bitter-relations between India and Pakistan or India and Bangladesh, water is and was a major constraint.

This story of water-disputes doesn’t start after the partition rather it is centuries old when British-Indian Government started constructing canals on the rivers. The major dispute was between Sindh and Punjab which was resolved in 1945 through an agreement under the supervision of British experts. However, soon after the partition this problem again came up to the surface when India blocked Pakistani water from Kashmir in 1948. Pakistan protested strongly against it with the British Government, which resulted in a standstill agreement between India and Pakistan. This agreement took a legal and final shape in 1960 through good offices of World Bank. According to the treaty, full control of three western tributaries was given to India and the control of the three Eastern tributaries was given to Pakistan, with the condition that India may use water without stopping the flow of water.

The decade of 1970 again saw the rise of this issue with Indian construction of Salal Dam, which Pakistan later accepted after having a dialogue with India. After the Salal Dam controversy, Wullar and Tulbul were other projects that proved to be the major bone of contention. India started the construction of Baghlihar Dam in 1992, Pakistan during the Musharraf regime went into arbitration against India. World Bank-mediated the disputed and agreed to some Indian and some Pakistani points. Kishaganga is the most recent episode of that controversy, with Indian building Dam on the River Jhelum.

Pakistan is constructing its own dam on its side of Kashmir and the construction of Kishanganga will severely reduce the power generation capacity of the Neelum-Jhelum project. The recent rhetoric of Indian establishment to stop the flow of water into Pakistan is another dimension to hydro-politics. This defense and military side has played a key role in the past conflict and is still a major part of the warfare.

Pakistan is also facing a water dispute on the eastern side with little intensity than on the western side. Afghan Government is constructing an Indian sponsored dam on the river Kabul in their country, which has the capability to limit the supply of water into Pakistan.

 Now if we look internally, the water-dispute has a huge internal dynamics as well. The scarcity of water has been causing of many misunderstandings among our four provinces. All of the four provinces in some way or the other consider themselves as the ultimate deprived one without taking care for the rest but most of such hatred or misunderstandings exist in the three smaller provinces. Before the partition, the Eastern tributaries had been given to Sindh according to the agreement but now under the new arrangement of IWT, we have to divide the remaining among the provinces, causing confusions and provincial rivalry. Sindh being low-riparian blames Punjab for the theft of water; Balochistan, in turn, blames Sindh for doing that.

This makes the situation quite complex and tense. Kalabagh dam is one example of the lack of trust and misunderstanding among our provinces. Kalabagh dam is a viable project according to the surveys carried not only by national but by international experts. Still this project is in cold storage due to the trust-deficit and reservations among the smaller provinces. Punjab has been pushing for the project but smaller provinces are not accepting this due to many reasons, some of which I am going to mention.

Sindh Government says that the province is already suffering from water-shortage and any kind of such dam will prove to be disastrous for water supply to the agrarian land. This reduction of water will also affect the poor fisherman, whose life depends solely on this water. Balochistan thinks that if the supply of water is reduced to Sindh, which is upper-riparian compared to them. It will surely affect the already limited supply of water to Balochistan. Kpk is of the view that Kalabagh dam will not only displace many local people but will also cause water-salination. The other major reservation among the people is the flooding of the regions of Peshawar valley.

Whether the water-disputes are internal or external, all the entities of the region should come to the table to solve them. This should be on the basis of legal expertise and not on political rhetoric. So far the solution to both internal and external water disputes has not been that viable due to the ever-changing environment.