It is time the government takes the water shortage issue seriously instead of allowing its spokespersons to use it to create differences between provinces. The PTI’s Firdous Ashiq Awan in Punjab and Halim Adil Sheikh in Sindh are already involved in the activity. There is no doubt a shortage of water in the country. Consequently both Punjab and Sindh will be receiving less water than needed. In Sindh this would badly affect the cotton crop with consequences not only for tens of thousands of growers but also for the country’s textile industry. The IRSA manages the shortages on the basis of a defective 1991 water accord. The accord is based on the faulty assumption of availability of 117.35 MAF of water in the Indus. As this much of water has never been available in the river, the expectations of the provinces cannot be fulfilled. There is a need under the circumstances for Parliament to formulate a more realistic accord. More water reservoirs alone will never resolve the water shortage issue without the implementation of a well thought out plan for the conservation of water. The country wastes almost a medium sized dam full of water every hour a day. Much more water per house is wasted in the cities now than it was in early years of Pakistan. Underground potable water was available at less than 20 feet in Lahore in 1947 and a decade later, It has now gone down to about 200 feet. Fresh tap water is still used to wash the floors and cars. There is a need to put water meters and make consumers above a defined minimum level pay heavily to reduce wastage. There is colossal wastage of water in agriculture. A lot of water evaporates or gets absorbed in subsoil during transmission from the canals to the fields through uncemented, uncovered irrigation channels. More water is wasted through primitive methods of flooding the uneven fields. There is a need to introduce and make compulsory modern leveling techniques combined with drip irrigation or other methods that require minimum use of water. Unless the state concentrates on water conservation agriculture will suffer and provincial disputes will weaken the country.
