Catching the water thieves

Those who steal water from the canal tail-enders to enrich themselves have no right to engage in politics on water or to do politics at all. Stealing water is like stealing away life. The same people then have the audacity to show concern over the ensuing water shortage and commiserate with the poor, from whom they have stolen. This is downright criminal. In the last 10 days I have toured Sindh and Punjab to see why the poor people of both provinces are suffering water shortages, how they are used in inter-provincial disputes, and how the elite with the connivance of irrigation bureaucracy steal their rights.

Clearly those tail-enders who are not just at their canal tail but are at the tail of the country’s irrigation system are the ones who suffer the most. The poor in both Sindh and Punjab have some similarities. They are poor because they don’t have the political clout to challenge the rich, and most water thieves are waderas/zamindars. One reason why the poor do not rise against the ruling elite is because the latter controls the police and if the poor people do even get the courage to demonstrate they can expect to get heavy-handed treatment from the law-enforcers. In such a situation the best option for most of them is to do nothing at all.

And now let’s examine what the thieves have in common in both provinces. Apart from the fact that in both instances they are feudals, they also have irrigation officials on their payroll. They use intimidation methods against their villagers to keep them in check not to rise against their theft. And lastly — and this in fact damages the federation’s unity — to hide their theft, they tamper with inter-provincial water arrangements and blame the shortages that they themselves help create on the other province. This however can all be avoided if the telemetry system were enforced but the fact is that the telemetry is not operational anymore – and there is no word on what the government is doing to restore it.

Parliament’s sovereignty and utility is at stake even on this most important of issues. It needs to pass laws to enact stiff punishments against those convicted of water theft – and this legislation must be enforced. That is the only way that the theft will be reduced.

Furthermore, parliament needs to approve budgetary allocations for those projects including staff regularisations which save water (such as watercourse improvement projects). It needs to direct the executive towards spending on those projects which conserve water without creating further inequalities in distribution and the two that come to mind are run-of-river hydropower projects and small dams.

Land use should be rationalised and water use charges should be imposed on irrigation water, so that wastage is reduced. As for technology, use of modern irrigation methods would help greatly as well because it would also help reduce waste of water. Also, the use of satellite tracking could be explored to monitor how water allocations are being used by various users and stakeholders. Furthermore, parliament needs to ensure that the government fights the case on water and its distribution with other countries more effectively.

Above all, the government needs to ensure that the organisations that are tasked with executing the 1991 water accord, such as Irsa, are running in a manner that the mandate given to them is carried out in a thorough and professional manner. This also means that their working is transparent and that the decisions they make keep in mind the views and sensitivities of all provinces and not just one particular one.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 14^th, 2010.