Water talks

The ensuing rift within the ruling coalition over building of six water canals on River Indus has taken a pleasant turn, as PPP and PML-N, the two major partners at the Centre, have agreed to talk it out. The good point after months of discord is that a kind of thaw has arrived, as the PPP of Sindh and the PML-N stalwarts who are running the show at Punjab and the federal dispensation have hinted at resolving the controversy through consultation rather than confrontation. The issue has apparently borne out of an ambitious agriculture initiative to irrigate barren lands in Punjab's Cholistan for which water is to be procured allegedly at the expense of Sindh. It goes without saying that the mega project either lacked consensus or it was bulldozed without taking the lower riparian province into confidence. The sourness was evident as President Asif Ali Zardari in his annual address to the parliament termed it as an anti-federation initiative.

Pakistan, being an agrarian state, cannot limit its mosaic of cultivation. At the same time increasing per yield production and mechanising the farming sectors are indispensable challenges. Green Pakistan Initiative of the Punjab government is a step in the right direction and should be replicated by other provinces by tapping new horizons of appropriate cultivation. Luckily, disbursement of water has a consensual and constitutionally-ordained mechanism between the federating units, and the pieces of legislation in the form of the 1991 Water Accord and the IRSA Act of 1992 are in need of being honoured. Any discord over new initiatives should not be politicised and rather dealt with amicably in the national interest. Sindh too on its part must indulge in introspection as the wider terrain of its cultivable land is barren, and the inflow of water can be better channelised for a greener tomorrow. It is also a given that no province should encroach on other's resources and equitable distribution of water should be ensured. One hopes Sindh and Punjab will look at the wider picture of development and make room for a give and take.