The plan to build six new canals on the Indus to irrigate the Cholistan Desert was put on hold, and the Council of Common Interests has decided that canals would only be dug if there was a consensus among stakeholders. With that, the CCI in its meeting on Monday decided to walk back the February 15 Green Pakistan Initiative, and the Cabinet’s April 25 decision to withdraw the February 7 ECNEC approval, as well as to return the certificate of water availability issued by the Indus Rivers System Authority Chairman. A committee has been set up, which is supposed to examine not just the canals’ feasibility but also the provinces’ water use plan for the future. That kind of planning should not have needed a crisis to cause it, because one persistent reality exists, which is that water availability is declining, as the population burgeons, and no source of water has become available, or has any new storage been constructed.
Apart from that, climate change’s impact will be felt as the globe grows warmer. Floods will be more devastating than before, as they did year before last, this year, the prediction is of a drought, which perhaps dooms the rice crop to failure, but means that underground aquifers will not be sufficiently charged, nor will enough water be stored in reservoirs, on top of that, India has just announced the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty. Even if that suspension does not stick, it indicates that it has intentions on the Indus Waters. Indian chafing at the restraints the Treaty places on it have been obvious for decades now, as it tries to divert those waters to its own use. How it treats a lower riparian state even if its government is as eager for its goodwill as any puppy, can be seen by the way it has over the Teesta River.
One view could be that Sindh alone has been able to stop the canals, while it had to combine with KP to stop the Kalabagh Dam. It is somewhat cynically said that now the provinces will have to share the shortages. It is a somber reality that even if Indian demands could be fended off, global warming will probably ensure that there will be no water to share, between provinces, even countries.
