Drought dilemma

What is most necessary is an overhaul of water management and conservation policies


Editorial November 07, 2018

Drought conditions in the massively large and massively cash-strapped province of Balochistan continue to worsen. The provincial assembly has now demanded through a unanimous resolution on Monday that the federal government declares all drought-stricken areas of the province ‘calamity-affected.’ BNP-M MPA Sanaullah Mengal, who moved the resolution, said international institutions have already taken note of the drought-like situation in the province, and a federal relief package for farmers should be announced post-haste. He demanded waivers of power dues, agricultural loans, and 18-hours-a-day of power supply.

Meanwhile, PkMAP’s Nasrullah Khan claimed the previous government had proposed 200 small dams to address the water crisis. But despite its five years in power, most of these remain just that — proposed.

That the new government could not offer its concrete solutions of its own is also surprising. It is not as if this problem has snuck up on anyone. It would appear that the provincial government is taking a page out of neighbouring Sindh’s playbook for Thar by sympathising with victims and hoping the problem resolves itself. Water issues are not going to fix themselves. A water-scarce country like Pakistan cannot rely on tube wells or even dams. What is most necessary is an overhaul of water management and conservation policies to address water waste and transmission losses.

And while asking people to turn the tap off while brush their teeth is all hunky-dory, it accomplishes nothing in the larger frame of things. This is because agriculture uses between 70% and 90% of all water, and estimates suggest that over 35% of that water is wasted between canal heads and farms and by flooding of fields for certain crops. Nationwide agricultural policies also need massive reforms, because we cannot justify reliance on water-intensive cash crops such as rice. As Thar shows, that cash may have already become blood money.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 7th, 2018.

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