Muhammad Ali
World Water Day was held on March 22nd as an effort to focus on the importance of fresh water and emphasis for the sustainable management of fresh water sources for the achievement of socio-economic, environmental objectives in order to achieve water related goals. World Water Day highlights a specific aspect of water. In 2016, theme was “Water and Jobs”, in 2017 it is “Waste Water”. Today there are 663 million people who are living without a safe water supply. Millions others are spending countless hours queuing or trekking to distant water sources and coping with the health impacts. Pakistan and India are among the 145 countries that share common international basins. Decrease in water quality, climate change, migration, population influx and several other factors have influenced both the riparian states to develop water cooperation mechanisms to meet their challenges. Around 80 % of fresh water is being supplied to the Indus River through melted Himalayan glaciers, which contribute 65% of the country’s agriculture. The river Indus originates from Tibet/ China and flows to the middle riparian India from where it enters into the territory of Pakistan. Pakistan is a water scarce country with alarmingly reduced water availability. Over population, climate change and non-development of reservoir are main reason for water scarcity.
According to the World Bank (WB) reports, Pakistan would become water scarce country, due to its high population and lack of resources to utilize its water reservoirs. Pakistan is having 145 million acre feet (MAF) of water availability. Indus water basin is hub to provide natural water sources in the form of Chanab, Ravi and Jhelum, which accounts in the economic progress of the country.
Anticipating a water crisis, India has started to construct dams on the western rivers water tributaries which are assigned to Pakistan under the Indus Water Treaty. India is building Kishan Ganga dam on Jhelum River which has a capacity to generate electricity of 330MW. Pakistan has appealed in Hague’s permanent court of arbitration against Indian hostile behavior for violating the Indus Water Treaty by depriving Pakistan of its water right. Moreover, India made another blow to hit Pakistan’s interest by construction of Ratla Hydro-power project on Chanab river which would have more than three times capacity to produce hydro-power than Bhasha dam with adverse affects of water scarcity in Pakistan.
Indus Water Treaty is an international treaty and India cannot revoke it unilaterally. India has become an irresponsible and rogue state under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India has also started using water aggression as a tool to pursue its own agendas vis-à-vis Pakistan. PM Modi, while addressing to the farmers of Punjab threatened Pakistan to cutoff water supply. “The fields of our farmers must have adequate water. Water that belongs to India cannot be allowed to go to Pakistan. The government will do everything to provide enough water to our farmers.”In the backdrop of Indian violations on water, farmers association in Pakistan arranged conference on 10th March 2017 at Hyderabad, Sindh to condemn Indian hostile attitude towards Pakistan followed by a second conference to be held on March 23rd at Islamabad to condemn India’s hegemonic water designs against Pakistan.
The 113th Permanent Indus Water Commission held in the month of March in Pakistan. India has sent a ten member delegation in said meeting. Pakistan has put forward an advice of deploying a monitoring mechanism to access the adverse affects of climate change on the water flows of Indus water system during meeting scheduled this month. During the meeting, Pakistan communicated to India that the discussions would be held to monitor the parameters relevant to the climate change for the Indus System Rivers. Unfortunately, India responded that it would not include Kishan Ganga and Ratla hydro-power projects on agenda discussion in the meeting. Keeping in view the situation, it is envisaged that it will prove as hindrance in bilateral dialogues between the two countries. WB and the US should play their role to resolve the water issue between the two countries. This water dispute should not be used as a tool to aggravate the hostile intentions of India for destroying the prosperity and integration of the region.
