AFTER Pakistan moved into the category of a water-stressed country, policymakers seem preparing for a catch-up mode, but not without the traditional acrimonious beginning.

“With increasing population, Pakistan is fast heading towards a situation of serious water shortage,” notes an official summary, putting the per-capita water availability at 940 cubic metres per year in 2015 — down from 5,260 cubic metres in 1951 — despite the addition of two major reservoirs, ie Tarbela and Mangla.

It is feared that the per-capita availability will “drop to about 860 cubic metres by 2025 representing acute water shortage conditions. Pakistan has thus reached the stage of ‘acute water shortage’ where people fight for every drop of water”, according to a recent summary of the erstwhile water and power ministry submitted to the Council of Common Interests (CCI).

It was against this backdrop that Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Sartaj Aziz has brought provincial governments on board to revisit a draft National Water Policy, lying in limbo for more than a decade, owing in part to constitutional limitations.

The legislative list of the Constitution does not possess any such provision with regard to water policy, etc. The law ministry had opined that the issue was of provincial subject.

Pakistan has reached the stage of ‘acute water shortage’ where people fight for every drop of water, according to a recent summary of the erstwhile water and power ministry

The federal government and provinces have generally agreed over a revised policy to ensure a minimum of 10 per cent of consolidated (both federal and provincial) development fund for water sector development in the upcoming budget 2018-19, and gradually enhance it to 20pc of total development portfolio by 2030. Total funding for the water sector currently stands at around 7pc and remains unfocused with divergent priorities.

Based on such principles, the consolidated funding to water sector is now pitched at Rs204 billion for the next fiscal year from about Rs145bn during the current fiscal year. An amount of Rs37-40bn of the amount would remain dedicated every year to the multi-purpose Diamer-Bhasha dam for the next three years. The funding for 2019-20 has been estimated at Rs234bn.

This is important for the fact that besides other uses, water is a lifeline to the country’s agriculture sector that accounts for about 20pc of the GDP, employs almost 45pc labour force, contributes raw material to many value-added sectors and ensures food security.

However, the Sindh government, while agreeing to enhanced funding to water sector, has renewed its long-standing demand that flood protection activities should be treated as a federal subject and its capital investments should be financed by the Centre, given peculiar lower riparian position of Sindh that has to safely channel flood flows from other provinces, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan to the sea.

This was rejected on the basis of constitutional provisions by the Planning Commission on ground that financing dykes, flood bunds and drainage infrastructure was provincial responsibility and the centre could only come in aid of the provincial government in case of catastrophic emergencies.

Sindh has, however, been able to include in the new policy to ensure construction of large dams for system augmentation with the consensus of all the provinces. The debate for federal funding for flooding is expected to remerge when the CCI takes up for approval the National Water Policy on Tuesday.

The policy addresses issues relating to enhancing water storage capacity, conservation, research and development, capacity-building of existing administrative departments, allocation of financial resources and establishment of the institutional set-up at provincial levels.

The draft policy now generally goes in line with the 18th Constitution Amendment that transferred most of the water-related responsibilities to provinces and sets broad policy principles for water security on the basis of which the provincial governments would formulate their respective master plans, take up projects for water conservation and adopt water development and water management activities and priorities.

The policy, nevertheless, sets major national targets for the water sector, including water storage, water conservation, irrigation, water treatment and drinking water. In the first step, these broad targets have been firmed up in consultation with provincial governments and will be reviewed periodically for inclusion in the 12th and 13th five-year plans accordingly.

One of the key guidelines of the first water policy is to lay down an appropriate pricing mechanism to recover at least the operating and maintenance cost from users so that the existing national water assets could be maintained for the future. It sets a basic guideline to have a broad master plan for major storage and irrigation with the approval of the CCI to take in hand major projects, their financing and tariff-related matters.

The proposed policy seeks to reduce conveyance losses to about 30 million acre-feet (MAF) by 2030 from 45 MAF at present in river flows by strengthening the canal system, and complete at least one mega dam (possibly Diamer-Bhasha) and set in motion the construction of another dam so that Pakistan’s total storage capacity could increase to at least 20 MAF from 14 MAF at present.

Also, it targets increasing irrigation efficiency by one-third through latest technologies like drip and sprinkle to ensure “more crop per drop” by linking the pricing of canal water supply with tube well water supply to bridge a wide gap between the two sources.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, March 26th, 2018