Dawn,
Published May 8, 2025
PLANES and bombs are not the end of it. New Delhi is also up to mischief on another front. This weekend, without prior intimation, which officials say it is bound to provide under the terms of the Indus Waters Treaty, India virtually blocked water from flowing into the Chenab in Pakistan, reducing water availability for crops this side of the border.
PLANES and bombs are not the end of it. New Delhi is also up to mischief on another front. This weekend, without prior intimation, which officials say it is bound to provide under the terms of the Indus Waters Treaty, India virtually blocked water from flowing into the Chenab in Pakistan, reducing water availability for crops this side of the border.
Punjab irrigation officials said Pakistan’s waters were being used to fill up three Indian reservoirs with a total capacity of 1.2 MAF, and there was a possibility that the stored water would be released without warning, causing dangerous flooding downstream. “If they keep filling their dams and avert discharging, they may leave us without water for four to five days more,” an official remarked. Meanwhile, India had also started the process of augmenting the reservoir holding capacity at its Salal and Baglihar projects in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir. A Reuters report stated that ‘reservoir flushing’ was underway at the two projects to enhance their capacity to hold water, and that if other dams also started doing the same, Pakistan’s water share could be adversely affected in the future. This, of course, is a serious situation that needs constant monitoring by Pakistan. The Chenab irrigates vast tracts of farmland in Punjab, and India’s actions are aimed at sabotaging Pakistan’s water and food security. If they continue to escalate, water disputes between the two nations have the potential to trigger a wider, more serious conflict in the future.
The Modi regime, whose judgment has been clouded by hubris ever since India’s economic clout started inviting international attention, lit a fuse after making the unilateral decision to ‘suspend’ the IWT. Its actions have placed the treaty’s status in uncertainty, at least for now. This is a dangerous game for New Delhi to be playing. Water is a lifeline for Pakistan’s economy, and any actions India takes to try to alter its supply in violation of the IWT will be taken as a provocation to war by Pakistan. Islamabad has made this clear. If India continues to push the boundaries of acceptability, Pakistan may soon face a situation where its options may be limited to kinetic measures. Climate change has presented the country with severe existential crises that it needs to overcome in order to protect the lives and livelihoods of its people. Any foreign act or aggression that imperils Pakistan’s waters and therefore the well-being of its people cannot be countenanced.
Without further ado, Pakistan needs to mount an aggressive legal challenge against India’s move to ‘suspend’ the IWT and either compel or convince it to reverse its decision. Diplomatic channels should continue to be utilised to prevent any serious violation of water-sharing agreements, which have the potential to place millions on both sides in peril. The IWT has survived wars and conflict over issues much more serious than the one manufactured most recently by New Delhi. It cannot be simply undone by one side over flimsy pretexts. India must be held to its commitments.
Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2025
Water security to 2047
Ali Tauqeer Sheikh
The Modi regime, whose judgment has been clouded by hubris ever since India’s economic clout started inviting international attention, lit a fuse after making the unilateral decision to ‘suspend’ the IWT. Its actions have placed the treaty’s status in uncertainty, at least for now. This is a dangerous game for New Delhi to be playing. Water is a lifeline for Pakistan’s economy, and any actions India takes to try to alter its supply in violation of the IWT will be taken as a provocation to war by Pakistan. Islamabad has made this clear. If India continues to push the boundaries of acceptability, Pakistan may soon face a situation where its options may be limited to kinetic measures. Climate change has presented the country with severe existential crises that it needs to overcome in order to protect the lives and livelihoods of its people. Any foreign act or aggression that imperils Pakistan’s waters and therefore the well-being of its people cannot be countenanced.
Without further ado, Pakistan needs to mount an aggressive legal challenge against India’s move to ‘suspend’ the IWT and either compel or convince it to reverse its decision. Diplomatic channels should continue to be utilised to prevent any serious violation of water-sharing agreements, which have the potential to place millions on both sides in peril. The IWT has survived wars and conflict over issues much more serious than the one manufactured most recently by New Delhi. It cannot be simply undone by one side over flimsy pretexts. India must be held to its commitments.
Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2025
Water security to 2047
Ali Tauqeer Sheikh
Published May 8, 2025
Dawn,
The writer is a climate change and sustainable development expert.
INDIA’S unilateral decision to place the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance threatens Pakistan’s water security after six decades of cooperative management. While pursuing legal challenges, Pakistan must also implement transformative water strategies to secure its future amidst climate change and the risk of upstream infrastructural development.
This crisis will intensify in the coming decades as Pakistan’s population doubles by 2050 while available water resources potentially diminish by half. Under these conditions, Pakistan must quadruple its water productivity simply to maintain current levels of water security.
Given these challenges, Pakistan needs to adopt a comprehensive strategy spanning the next 25 years to 2050, coinciding with India’s projected timeline for developing the diversion infrastructure. This strategy should position Pakistan to reduce water insecurity by its centennial anniversary in 2047. The strategy should address both supply and demand dimensions, combining policy reforms and technological innovation with structural institutional transformation. The following six tracks can be followed concurrently.
Maximise water productivity: Agriculture consumes over 90 per cent of our water resources. Pakistan must extract more value from each drop of water by dramatically increasing agricultural water productivity. Following the example of Indian Punjab and Haryana, it should target annual increases of 1-2pc in water productivity for major crops. Compounded over 25 years, this would yield a 28-64pc increase in overall water productivity, enabling us to maintain or increase agricultural output with less water.
Pakistan must quadruple its water productivity to maintain current levels of water security.
This transformation requires modernising irrigation infrastructure to reduce the current 60pc water loss during conveyance and field application. Transitioning from flood irrigation to more efficient methods like drip and precision irrigation systems, implementing digital water monitoring technologies, and adopting conservation agriculture techniques that improve soil water retention would improve efficiency. The Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, now facing unwise closure, has already piloted these options. The lessons can be upscaled. Critical staple crops (sugarcane, wheat, rice and cotton) currently consume disproportionate water resources relative to their economic value.
Conjunctive management of surface and groundwater resources, a cornerstone of the unimplemented National Water Policy, must become a central tenet of our agricultural water strategy. By recharging groundwater during the monsoons through nature-based solutions like constructed wetlands and modified farm practices, Pakistan can create natural subsurface reservoirs that stabilise water availability in dry periods.
These steps would help with vital agricultural exports. With consistent implementation over the 25-year timeline, Pakistan could achieve water productivity comparable to regional benchmarks, ensuring agricultural sustainability with decreasing surface water flows.
Harness hill torrents: Pakistan’s hill torrent systems represent an untapped resource that could transform agriculture in mountainous regions. While currently irrigating 0.84-3.16 million acres, proper management could expand this to 17.2m acres, benefiting 15-20m people in economically disadvantaged areas. Contemporary management approaches integrating remote sensing, AI, and community participation convert destructive seasonal flash floods into productive irrigation resources.
A comprehensive hill torrent management programme could add 12-16 MAF of water annually — more than our current total storage capacity. This option avoids inter-provincial tensions triggered by the expansion of the canal network, by precisely targeting areas with the greatest need.
Develop alternative water sources: Pakistan must prioritise developing entirely new water sources, particularly for its coastal urban centres. Desalination technology offers a viable solution for Karachi, which houses 15pc of Pakistan’s population, as well as for Hyderabad and other coastal cities, potentially serving 25-30m people.
Modern reverse osmosis desalination, especially when powered by renewable energy, has become cost-effective for urban and industrial water supply. Public-private partnerships can mobilise capital for infrastructural investments. By meeting coastal urban demand through desalination, Pakistan can reduce pressure on the Water Apportionment Accord, freeing up to 4 MAF of water annually from the Indus system for farming and other uses.
Complementary to desalination, Pakistan must expand wastewater treatment and reuse. Israel now recycles 86pc of its wastewater, primarily for agricultural use. If Pakistan were to achieve even half this rate, it could reclaim some 3-4 MAF annually, supplementing freshwater supplies while reducing marine pollution.
These alternative sources provide diversification to Pakistan’s water portfolio, reducing vulnerability to changes in transboundary flows while addressing the specific needs of growing urban consumption.
Implement rational water pricing: Pakistan’s heavily subsidised water pricing undermines conservation efforts. A 25-year plan for gradual cost recovery from industrial, municipal, and agricultural water users is essential for suppressing growing demand.
In the farm sector, appropriate pricing would encourage shifts away from water-intensive crops like sugarcane and rice in water-scarce regions. In urban areas, it would drive adoption of water-saving technologies and behaviour. Water pricing reform must be implemented with carefully designed protections for small farmers and vulnerable populations. While politically challenging, pricing reform is among the most powerful tools for addressing Pakistan’s water crisis through demand management.
Transform water institutions: Pakistan should pursue a comprehensive institutional reform agenda learning from our failures and successful global examples. This includes recasting the mandates of several existing institutions and streamlining coordination between federal and provincial water institutions, and integrated hydrological data systems.
Convert crisis into an opportunity:The IWT’s suspension is a frontal attack on the Indus Valley civilisation and the Indus Basin — our food machine feeding millions in South, Central and West Asia. Instead of allowing our economy and society to become hostage to India’s unilateralism, it’s time for us to invest in our water security and address Pakistan’s chronic water management issues. A transformed water management system could fuel our economy and provide insurance against climatic uncertainties and transboundary pressures.
By implementing comprehensive reforms and adopting proven management strategies, Pakistan can build resilience against both diplomatic uncertainties and climate change impacts.
Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2025
INDIA’S unilateral decision to place the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance threatens Pakistan’s water security after six decades of cooperative management. While pursuing legal challenges, Pakistan must also implement transformative water strategies to secure its future amidst climate change and the risk of upstream infrastructural development.
This crisis will intensify in the coming decades as Pakistan’s population doubles by 2050 while available water resources potentially diminish by half. Under these conditions, Pakistan must quadruple its water productivity simply to maintain current levels of water security.
Given these challenges, Pakistan needs to adopt a comprehensive strategy spanning the next 25 years to 2050, coinciding with India’s projected timeline for developing the diversion infrastructure. This strategy should position Pakistan to reduce water insecurity by its centennial anniversary in 2047. The strategy should address both supply and demand dimensions, combining policy reforms and technological innovation with structural institutional transformation. The following six tracks can be followed concurrently.
Maximise water productivity: Agriculture consumes over 90 per cent of our water resources. Pakistan must extract more value from each drop of water by dramatically increasing agricultural water productivity. Following the example of Indian Punjab and Haryana, it should target annual increases of 1-2pc in water productivity for major crops. Compounded over 25 years, this would yield a 28-64pc increase in overall water productivity, enabling us to maintain or increase agricultural output with less water.
Pakistan must quadruple its water productivity to maintain current levels of water security.
This transformation requires modernising irrigation infrastructure to reduce the current 60pc water loss during conveyance and field application. Transitioning from flood irrigation to more efficient methods like drip and precision irrigation systems, implementing digital water monitoring technologies, and adopting conservation agriculture techniques that improve soil water retention would improve efficiency. The Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, now facing unwise closure, has already piloted these options. The lessons can be upscaled. Critical staple crops (sugarcane, wheat, rice and cotton) currently consume disproportionate water resources relative to their economic value.
Conjunctive management of surface and groundwater resources, a cornerstone of the unimplemented National Water Policy, must become a central tenet of our agricultural water strategy. By recharging groundwater during the monsoons through nature-based solutions like constructed wetlands and modified farm practices, Pakistan can create natural subsurface reservoirs that stabilise water availability in dry periods.
These steps would help with vital agricultural exports. With consistent implementation over the 25-year timeline, Pakistan could achieve water productivity comparable to regional benchmarks, ensuring agricultural sustainability with decreasing surface water flows.
Harness hill torrents: Pakistan’s hill torrent systems represent an untapped resource that could transform agriculture in mountainous regions. While currently irrigating 0.84-3.16 million acres, proper management could expand this to 17.2m acres, benefiting 15-20m people in economically disadvantaged areas. Contemporary management approaches integrating remote sensing, AI, and community participation convert destructive seasonal flash floods into productive irrigation resources.
A comprehensive hill torrent management programme could add 12-16 MAF of water annually — more than our current total storage capacity. This option avoids inter-provincial tensions triggered by the expansion of the canal network, by precisely targeting areas with the greatest need.
Develop alternative water sources: Pakistan must prioritise developing entirely new water sources, particularly for its coastal urban centres. Desalination technology offers a viable solution for Karachi, which houses 15pc of Pakistan’s population, as well as for Hyderabad and other coastal cities, potentially serving 25-30m people.
Modern reverse osmosis desalination, especially when powered by renewable energy, has become cost-effective for urban and industrial water supply. Public-private partnerships can mobilise capital for infrastructural investments. By meeting coastal urban demand through desalination, Pakistan can reduce pressure on the Water Apportionment Accord, freeing up to 4 MAF of water annually from the Indus system for farming and other uses.
Complementary to desalination, Pakistan must expand wastewater treatment and reuse. Israel now recycles 86pc of its wastewater, primarily for agricultural use. If Pakistan were to achieve even half this rate, it could reclaim some 3-4 MAF annually, supplementing freshwater supplies while reducing marine pollution.
These alternative sources provide diversification to Pakistan’s water portfolio, reducing vulnerability to changes in transboundary flows while addressing the specific needs of growing urban consumption.
Implement rational water pricing: Pakistan’s heavily subsidised water pricing undermines conservation efforts. A 25-year plan for gradual cost recovery from industrial, municipal, and agricultural water users is essential for suppressing growing demand.
In the farm sector, appropriate pricing would encourage shifts away from water-intensive crops like sugarcane and rice in water-scarce regions. In urban areas, it would drive adoption of water-saving technologies and behaviour. Water pricing reform must be implemented with carefully designed protections for small farmers and vulnerable populations. While politically challenging, pricing reform is among the most powerful tools for addressing Pakistan’s water crisis through demand management.
Transform water institutions: Pakistan should pursue a comprehensive institutional reform agenda learning from our failures and successful global examples. This includes recasting the mandates of several existing institutions and streamlining coordination between federal and provincial water institutions, and integrated hydrological data systems.
Convert crisis into an opportunity:The IWT’s suspension is a frontal attack on the Indus Valley civilisation and the Indus Basin — our food machine feeding millions in South, Central and West Asia. Instead of allowing our economy and society to become hostage to India’s unilateralism, it’s time for us to invest in our water security and address Pakistan’s chronic water management issues. A transformed water management system could fuel our economy and provide insurance against climatic uncertainties and transboundary pressures.
By implementing comprehensive reforms and adopting proven management strategies, Pakistan can build resilience against both diplomatic uncertainties and climate change impacts.
Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2025
The changing winds
Dawn,
Published May 7, 2025
SINDH recently experienced upheaval in the form of weeks-long agitation and dharnas against the proposal to construct new canals on the already stressed Indus River System. The anti-canals movement (ACM) was unique in many ways and deserves to be explored to understand the impact it may have left on politics in Sindh and the rest of the country.
The cause: The ‘protection’ of the Indus has too many meanings in the context of Sindh. A great majority of indigenous people have had a spiritual and historical affinity with the river that has sustained livelihoods, identities, settlements, demography and culture. For the environmentalist, the Indus is the preserver of the ecology — the delta, marine life, the coastal lands and communities. For the constitutionalists, the executive fiats threatening the due share of Sindh, the lower riparian, violate the constitutional architecture that provides for the distribution of powers and resources, including water, within the federation. And finally, for the nationalists and proponents of provincial autonomy, the proposed diversion of water from the Indus River System in the name of corporate farming posed a grave threat to Sindh’s security and integrity. Thus, the river is a point of convergence for varied, even rival, forces on a single agenda — saving the Indus.
The leadership: An amazing feature of this mass movement was its spontaneity. Though various political parties, particularly nationalists, lawyers and civil society, played a significant role in marshalling the ACM, a great majority of the people took to the streets on their own, without being galvanised or guided by a central leadership. In fact, the lack of a tightly organised structure proved helpful. Various individuals and groups resorted to their own ways and means to register their protest, adding exceptionally diversified colour and synergy to the mix. For instance, the unbearable heat and suffocating clouds of dust that enveloped the protest venues were made tolerable, and, even enjoyable, by artists, poets, singers, musicians and comedians, who gave the otherwise sombre and tense ambience a festive look.
The participants: It was truly a ‘people’s movement’. Among the people were a sizeable number of women, including young girls, who not only participated but also, in many instances, led the movement. The common cause of saving a river that was crucial to both the cities and villages brought out people from all over the province, including the metropolis. Besides all the opposition parties, there were media persons, doctors’ bodies, labour unions, peasant communes, intellectuals, writers, students, academia and even children. In fact, the movement also proved successful because it embodied a host of public grievances. The large crowds and conference halls provided various groups and individuals an opportunity to vent their grievances. Thus the lawyers raised their voice against the 26th Constitutional Amendment, media persons railed against Peca, urban civil society decried the increasing authoritarianism and violence in the country, and farmers, students and the rural intelligentsia fulminated against neo-feudalisation, bad governance, joblessness, poor services and lack of security in the province. Religious minorities also joined the movement. Among them were relatives and friends of Priya Kumari, a Hindu girl who has been missing for many years, with the government failing to recover her.
The anti-canals movement is certainly a triumph of the political process.
The means: Another striking feature of the ACM was its peaceful character. It went on for many weeks. Large crowds of people vociferously registered their anger against the provincial and federal governments. Even President Asif Zardari was castigated for ‘approving’ the canals. Yet, no incident of violence or vandalism occurred. True, commuters and transporters did face hardships and financial losses. The economy also suffered enormously due to the disruption of inter-city and inter-provincial traffic. But it was the studied indifference of the federal government, and the ‘double game’ played by the provincial government, which had heightened tempers, forcing the lawyers to throng the highways. While, the federal government ‘waited out’ the ACM for many weeks, expecting it to die down, the provincial government somersaulted and joined the protest against its coalition partner. Neither government showed any seriousness or urgency to break the impasse. The matter was taken to the relevant constitutional forum — the Council of Common Interests — where it was swiftly resolved, only when the country had become practically disjointed by the prolonged dharnas on interprovincial junctions.
Civic cooperation: Perhaps the most startling feature of the ACM was the overwhelming support it received from the people. In fact, Babarloi, the principal site of the dharna, near Khairpur, presented a novel model of communitarianism or civic cooperation. Local communities and people coming from all over the province set new records of generosity. Thousands of protesters received free food, water, refreshments, lodgings and even logistics. I must mention this exceptionally generous person — Papu Khan Mahar — who daily served around 50,000 bottles of mineral water, tea and biscuits to thousands of people at Babarloi. Moreover, the local communities protected the thousands of stranded trucks and trailers that lined the national highway. Not a single instance of looting was reported. In fact, many drivers were taken care of by the local villagers. Surprisingly, during the ACM, the number of crimes considerably dropped, even in those rural areas which are otherwise known for lawlessness.
Thankfully, the canals issue has been ‘resolved’, at least for the present, though the federal government has yet to disclose the source of irrigation for its planned large-scale corporate farming project. But the ACM is certainly a triumph of the political process that, in the end, recognised the legitimacy of the cause espoused by the people of Sindh. It is also a good omen for the province’s stagnant polity. A new coalition of forces — lawyers, civil society, political workers, students, farmers, the media, artists, etc — has emerged to fill the void created by the prevailing ‘one-party’ system in the province. It is too soon to predict an imminent change as a result of the ACM, but the winds are surely drifting away from the oligarchy that has long ruled the province, if not the entire country.
The writer is a lawyer.
shahabusto@hotmail.com
Published in Dawn, May 7th, 2025
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