Running on Empty: Pakistan's Water Crisis

'Military dictators used Kalabagh Dam to divide and rule's
(Continued form previous page)
 

By Rana Fawad
Posted: December 22, 2008

WASHINGTON: Military dictators have always used Kalabagh Dam to divide the provinces and consolidate their rule.

 

This was stated by Pakistan's National Coordinator Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) Dr. Kaiser Bengali. He was expressing his views during his luncheon speech and added, “A part of the reason the Kalabagh became so politicized is because the military dictators used it as a tool to stay in power.”

 

Earlier, Dr. Kaiser Bengali told the audience that he is not a water expert but his interest in water emerged out of the politics of water and added, “Pakistan could not focus on policy implementation because for almost 50 years the political leadership has been busy either fighting military dictatorships or trying to protect their civilian governments from intervention.”

Referring to the question ‘who should bring about the institutional change or what is the role of the external community’ Kaiser Bengali remarked the external community should support democracy in Pakistan. “The international community has supported dictatorships in Pakistan for too long.”

 

Analyzing the situation in Pakistan, he said, “The biggest feudal in the country is the military. They are the biggest land owners in the country. There is a military corporate empire which owns factories, banks, shops, pharmacies, travel agencies, so on and so forth. This stranglehold of the military over the economy is one of the biggest problems why democracy continues to falter.”

 

Dr. Kaiser Begali told the audience that Pakistan has a cultivated area of 21 million hectors out of which 18 million hectors are irrigated. So when we talk of water use we are talking of almost predominantly irrigated agriculture.

 

He mentioned that Pakistan started its life with a crisis and explained that as a consequence of the creation of India and Pakistan in 1947, the Indus rivers system was divided between the two with three rivers going to each country and India is the upper riparian on all the rivers.

 

“In April 1948, India shut off the water supply. It created a big crisis and threatened 1.7 million acre feet (MAF) of land as well as one million tons of wheat production.”

 

Dr. Kaiser Bengali remarked that the water crisis of 1948 drew attention towards the potential security threat and the need to have a system of water management. He added the paradigm that emerged as a corollary relied on two factors: one, engineering solution; and two, water storage.

 

Analyzing the constraints, he questioned that should Pakistan continue with the techno-centric engineering paradigm approach or should we move to something that is more manageable.

 

He illustrated that Pakistan has the largest man-made irrigation system in the world. “We have three major reservoirs (Tarbella Dam is the largest earth filled dam in the world), two head-works, 16 barrages, 43 canal systems, 12 link canals, 56 thousand kilometers (34796.786 miles) of canals, 1.6 million km (1 mil miles approx.) of water courses and channels, and between half a million to one million tube wells.

 

The veteran economist pointed out that at present Pakistan is faced with two challenges: water shortage and fiscal constraints.

 

Explicating the first challenge, he said the demand has exceeded supply. “In monsoon season we fill up dams and use water
when it is not available.”

 

Dr. Kaiser Bengali pointed out if we take the average water flow of the past 30 years (between 1978 and 1998) it has reduced
from 140 MAF 128.5 MAF whereas in the year 2002 it was down to 97 MAF.

 

He said the water treaty between Pakistan and India, called the Indus River Treaty, signed in 1960 allotted three rivers to Pakistan and Chenab is one of them. “India is not entitled to draw any water from Chenab River other than for specific purposes. Recently, India built Baglihar Dam on this river and Pakistan took the matter to the World Bank and now it is settled.”

 

He added that India needed to fill in the reservoir for energy generation but the timing was wrong and India was insensitive to the fact that winter was the wrong time to start filling in water reservoir. “According to the Indus River Treaty, 55,000 cusecs water must flow in Chenab River when it enters Pakistan whereas by September 2008 the water flow in this river dropped to 25,000 cusecs. Now, this has affected wheat sowing.”

 

He said there are two diametrically opposed solutions for the current water shortage. “One is the continuation of the techno-centric approach that says that since there is water shortage we need more dams. This is why we have a big debate on the Kalabagh Dam which has been shelved for now but you never know when it comes up again.”

 

Illustrating the other view, the economist mentioned that the opponents of new dams think there is insufficient availability of water and the average flow cannot be accepted as the standard measure. “They support their argument by referring to the Wyoming vs Colorado case of the US Supreme Court in 1922 that declared the average flow should not be used to determine the water distribution.”

 

He commented that the dams have wreaked havoc creating problems including salinity which is responsible for affecting 23 percent cultivable land. “In order to control salinity, we had to create a very expensive drainage project. Again, a very techno-centric approach with two thousand kilometers (1242 miles approx.) of surface drain, two thousand km of underground drains, two thousand tube wells, five thousand other structures, and 60 percent of this cost has been in foreign exchange by the international creditors.”

 

“It has created a domestic fiscal deficit. It has created a balance of payments deficit in dollars. The economic crisis Pakistanis facing today is very similar to that of 1998, and something similar to what we faced in 1988,” he added.

 

He commented that the multi-billion projects put strain on the country’s economic resources and take away other socially useful projects. “Moreover, such projects create operational and maintenance costs that drain the annual budget. Given that most of these projects are financed by international loans, we create a debt burden which then creeps into our balance of payment crisis.”

 

He remarked that this paradigm created deficit which is not limited to water alone. He told the audience that today Pakistan has a deficit of seven percent, which is on paper, because the regime of [former prime minister] Shaukat Aziz distorted data to a very large extent. “In reality, the budget deficit is much higher.”

 

Recommending a panacea, Dr. Kaiser Bengali remarked that first of all we need to have a stable government that is not worried about being thrown away in the middle of the night.

 

He also suggested that there is a need to shift from a techno-centric to socio-centric paradigm. Responding to a question about the agriculture tax opposed by the feudal lords, he said that there are some very practical difficulties regarding agriculture sector because a large part of the agricultural economy is not monetized which implies you cannot record costs, profits, etc.

 

He repeated that the biggest land owner in Pakistan is the military by accident of history. “When the British came to our part of the world, they acquired vast tracts of land for military purposes, railways, forts, etc. “He explained that this land has been leased to them by the provincial boards of revenues but the military is transferring this land, which belongs to the state, to its officers in the shape of cheap residential housing plots which are then sold at a very high price.

 

As for the solution of current problems, he remarked the new government should be allowed
 an uninterrupted term of five years to deal with the issues.

 

Responding to a question about the stability in the country, he replied that if you are weak, others will try to take advantage of your
situation. He added that India has been dealing with its neighbors on its own terms and adopted a very ham-handed approach.
“But it has not been able to do it to Pakistan because Pakistan is not a Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka” and added,
“But if Pakistan’s economy continues to weaken, then India will treat us the way it treats Bhutan.”

 

As for the question what does Pakistan need to do, he responded that the real question is what does the military need to do.
“It has to realize that a military belongs to a country, a country does not belong to a military.”

 

Pointing to the post-election scenario, Dr. Kaiser Bengali told the audience that the military officers’ briefing to the Parliament,
departure of Pervez Musharraf due to the fear of possible impeachment, and an opposition which is not seeking to destabilize the
government are very optimistic signs for the country.

 

To a question, he said land reforms should happen in Pakistan but in 1971 the Shariat Court (created by former President General Zia) declared that the land reforms are un-Islamic. He added that the military, which is the biggest land holder in the country, has an interest in not having any land reform.

 

When asked about the implications of peace and stability in the region, he commented that Pakistan and India need to manage the water distribution under the Indus Water Treaty which has outlasted all the crises between the two countries and emphasized that the regional disputes should be resolved politically where all sides feel their concerns have been taken care of. 

 

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