Coping with shrinking water resources

Thrust of policy reform needs to be on improving water-use efficiency in agriculture, which dominate water consumption

Pakistan is fast becoming a water scarce country. The looming statistics in this regard are quite scary. Warnings to the effect have been in abundance. Subject specialists have been talking and writing about the matter at least for the last more than three decades. Doomsday scenarios have been sketched aplenty. But the response of successive governments to these warnings has remained largely half-hearted. Despite being an agriculture-driven economy, in all these years, Pakistan’s water storage capacity has remained limited to only 30 days against the minimum required capacity of 120 days and recommended capacity for around 1,000 days, given its climate. Per capita water availability currently is estimated to be around 1,000 cubic metres against 5,600 cubic metres at the time of independence.

Of Pakistan‘s total area, nearly 13,680 square kilometres is covered by glaciers that help boost river turnoff in warm weather. According to scientists, in just a period of 30 years, glaciers in the Himalayas have diminished by nearly one-fifth and it is feared that these will have disappeared in the next 20 years. As water availability continues to shrink because of various natural factors, the crisis is being compounded by the mounting population. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a well-thought out conservation and management strategy to increase the efficiency of water usage while at the same time, adopting efficient technologies and sustainable agricultural practices with extra focus on providing food for the burgeoning population.

Over the years, Pakistanis have become a nation of waste-makers, especially when it comes to precious commodities like water and fossil fuel. According to one estimate, around one-third of the water from the irrigation system is lost in delivery due to seepage and malfunctioning watercourses. But no serious effort is seen to have been made in all these years to renovate the decaying irrigation system. Another source of waste comes from farms themselves. Poor farming practices also cause a lot of waste. Experts blame this on the warabandi system of water management in rural areas.

According to this system, each farmer has a specific day to irrigate his farm and irrespective of the quantity he uses, he pays a flat fee. Although this system was intended to be equitable in the face of water shortages, in reality, farmers who have first access do take a lion’s share of the water, most of which goes to waste due mainly to overuse. The system benefits large politically powerful farmers at the cost of small farmers, who increasingly depend on tube wells, which in turn affects the salt content of the soil, leading to environmental problems. This inequality in water distribution, experts assert, also negatively affects crop yields since small farmers do not have access to adequate water supplies.

According to a recent IMF report, the country has the necessary natural endowment and is blessed with the world’s most extensive irrigation system. Harnessing such potential needs, virtually, a paradigm shift in reframing water policy and management in a national context that emphasises demand-side measures, which would promote conservation and control of excessive groundwater exploitation. Moving forward, the thrust of policy reform needs to be on improving water-use efficiency in agriculture, which continues to dominate water consumption while escaping taxation at the federal level and is lightly taxed at the provincial level. This would require greater engagement of stakeholders at the local level in water management, and capacity-building of water management institutions. Furthermore, encouraging the provinces to reform their agriculture taxation systems in the context of the forthcoming NFC award could be a major step in overcoming the entrenched political interests of powerful landowners and bringing agriculture into the tax net. The report of the lender of last resort talks of taxes, but advisedly refrains from mentioning what kind of tax it is suggesting. A direct tax or an indirect one? A direct tax would mean tax on income from agriculture (which is highly welcome), while an indirect tax would, at best, mean users’ charges on irrigation water consumed by a farmer, which would be too regressive to say the least as this would adversely affect small farmers while enabling the large ones to corner the available water and continue to indulge in waste.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 26^th, 2015.

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