Many Pakistanis using 10 times more water than world average

ISLAMABAD:

It has become commonplace to say that next wars will be for water. Pakistan is already a water-stressed country, with around 1,038 cubic meters per capita water availability, a drop from 5,000 cubic meters in 1951.

The per capita storage capacity in the United States stands at 6,150 cubic meters, in Australia 5,000 cubic meters, but in Pakistan it is just 132 cubic meters that show how vulnerable 180 million Pakistanis are in terms of water availability.

About 20.3 million acres of land remain idle and need to be irrigated, which can only be done if Pakistan has the capacity to regulate the water released by building more reservoirs.

It may come as a shock, however, that many Pakistanis are using at least 10 times more water than the world’s average, and at no price. In fact, this is happening due to the absence of price, and hence that of market. When you provide water for free, there is no incentive for conservation.

For instance, looking at Faisalabad alone can reveal the need to conserve, the city is dependent on piped water supply from nearby Chiniot. Its own water reserves are brackish and undrinkable.

The city residents, connected through the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa), receive around 100 million gallons every day, but they receive it almost free. Through Wasa, the water reaches around 100,000 households, or around 900,000 people. This makes an average use of 100 gallons per person per day. The world’s average is 10 gallons per day.

The collection of Wasa remains abysmally low, and it is always dependent on provincial government’s subsidy.

Owing to the absence of appropriate water user charges, citizens use too much water, the supply agency remains poor, and ultimately there are no funds for maintenance of infrastructure. Absence of market in water will ultimately erode the ‘product’.

Local feuds

There are bigger and tougher challenges around water. In large parts of Sindh and other provinces, water is a major reason for local feuds. Most recently, “water theft” rendering 15,000 acres of land barren has been reported in Badin. Feudal lords have been blamed for “stealing” water into their farms and denying water at tail-ends in connivance with government officials.

However, the allegation of theft implies presence of private property. Water is not a private property there. The government has just designed an inefficient distribution system against some nominal and flat charges. If these waters can be redefined as a market, under the control of a community-led mechanism, we will achieve a welfare enhancing solution.

Water has to be priced, and each farmer using water as an input to his crops should pay.

Redefinition of water as private property will not only address the issue of conservation, as users will rationalise their use, but will also offer equity. Commercial factors instead of political factors will decide who gets how much water.

Solution in sight

Between Lahore and Islamabad, in the city of Bhalwal, a market of water is flourishing. Clean and safe water has been commoditised. The citizens not only pay for development of basic infrastructure, they also pay for each gallon of water they use.

For first 1,000 gallons, they pay five paisa, for the next 1,000 gallons, they pay seven paisa and more. The agency which has created this market is a community-based organisation, called Changa Pani Programme, led by a social entrepreneur, Nazeer Ahmad Wattoo.

In Bhalwal, water is a private property, limiting its use to those who pay. Like a good market, it does not discriminate, as all users have to pay the same charge. Poverty does not become an excuse. There is no shortage of clean and safe water for those, who can pay as low as five paisa per gallon.

The government of Punjab has shown readiness to reforms. The Punjab Saaf Pani Company – the writer is on its board – has been established to provide clean drinking water to all rural and peri-urban population of the province.

The company has been set up on professional grounds and one can hope that the days of politically motivated and poorly managed water supply schemes under fragmented governance are now over.

A fundamental shift is needed in the political mindset to make such structural changes more lasting: treat water as a private property, not as entitlement. Any governance structure that does not recognise this principle is bound to collapse.

The writer is the executive director of PRIME Institute, an economic policy think tank based in Islamabad

Published in The Express Tribune, March  9^th,  2015.

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