CCI meeting postponed until March 27

Three chief ministers signaled inability to attend

ISLAMABAD: The meeting of Council of Common Interests (CCI) has been pushed back until March 27, which was previously scheduled for tomorrow to discuss and finalise Pakistan's first National Water Policy.

It was rescheduled after the Prime Minister office sent a notification to the Ministry of Inter Provincial Coordination in the afternoon to “hold the meeting now on March 27”.

The CCI was to take up a four-point agenda and the National Water Policy (NWP) had to be discussed and passed, which has already been approved by the federal cabinet last week.

The draft for the NWP has been finalised by deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Sartaj Aziz in consultation with the provinces and other stakeholders.

The second and most argumentative agenda item that the CCI was to take up was the re-verification of five per cent census results on the demand of the Monitoring and Oversight Committee of Senators.



According to sources in the Ministry of Inter Provincial Coordination, the meeting was rescheduled at the eleventh hour because the Balochistan Chief Minister was the only one set to show up whereas the three other chief ministers signalled their inability to attend for unknown reasons.

The CCI meeting is chaired by the prime minister, with the four chief ministers and senior bureaucrats of the relevant provinces and departments being the attendees. The CCI also has an agenda to endorse decisions of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet.

The National Water Policy has been ineffectively addressed since 2005 among the provinces and the federal government. The matter has been contentious between the Centre and Sindh where the latter has been accusing Punjab of stealing their share of water.

The critical matter keeps delaying CCI meetings for several reasons, which include eleventh-hour disagreements of provinces in writing.



Ministry of Water and Power forwarded the policy to the Ministry of IPC in 2017 for a formal approval of the CCI but since then no consensus could be forged. The 20-page draft of NWP focuses on the impacts of climate change, advocates water pricing and highlights the regional cooperation challenges.

It also includes building reservoirs, efforts on a war-footing for water conservation and improvement of its availability, reliability and quality of freshwater resources to meet agricultural, energy security and environmental needs.

The policy also focuses on promotion of appropriate technologies for rainwater harvesting in rural and urban areas, control of groundwater pumping and reducing over-extraction.