Daily Times

In the cities, a water metering system should be installed so that people pay according to their usage. The rich have lavish sprawling lawns and the poor have no access to drinking water

So far, the party which came on the slogan of giving a ‘Naya Pakistan’ has not been able to give anything new as far as its mini-budget and establishment of Supreme Court-Prime Minister dam fund is concerned. On the contrary, by reversing the decision of the previous government that non-filers will not be able to buy cars and property in their name, it has taken back one positive step of the previous government to broaden the tax net.

The argument given in favour of reversing this step of the previous government is that it makes it difficult for the overseas Pakistanis to buy property or cars in Pakistan. This is a frivolous afterthought. One expected better creativity from Finance Minister Asad Umar – the one-time management guru.

He could have provided a proviso that overseas Pakistanis would be allowed to buy cars and property by presenting their NICOP or they could have provided proof that they are non-resident Pakistani and were paying their taxes in whichever country they live in.

Similarly, the naya Pakistan Prime Minister should not have jumped on the Supreme Court bandwagon asking people for donations to build the Diamer-Bhasha Dam. He could have easily raised the money by introducing a dam tax in addition to the Abiana.As it is, we have been told many times by the international agencies that existing Abiana rates for the canal irrigated land are very low – it doesn’t even meet maintenance cost of the irrigation infrastructure.

For instance: the rate of Abiana for rice crop in Sindh, where water is consumed in abundance, is just around Rs89 per acre for most canal irrigated areas; for wheat, it is between Rs39 and Rs53 per acre for majority of the canal irrigated areas; for fruit gardens, it is around Rs142 per acre for both Kharif and Rabi crops; for cotton, it is between Rs80 and Rs93 per acre for most canal irrigated areas; while for sugarcane it is between Rs137 and Rs181 per acre. The Abiana rates for canal and tube well irrigated agricultural land is not much different from Sindh in other provinces

The government has to subsidise the farmers every year. The government should increase the Abiana rates on the more than 8 million agricultural farms in the country.

Almost 90 percent of water in our rivers is consumed by agriculture lands so if the government can be bold enough to levy a dam tax on the agriculture users with the promise that it would be withdrawn once the Diamer-Bhasha Dam is built; I don’t think there would be much opposition on this levy. This dam tax should be levied through an act of Parliament, which should clearly mention that it would be withdrawn once the dam is built.

The government should also separate the cost of power generation plants from the dam so it can raise the money from the local banks by making proper marketable business feasibility. As it is, the foreign multi-lateral banks have shied away, so far, from financing the Diamer-Bhasha Dam because of Indian pressure which says that it is a dam on the disputed territory of Gilgit-Baltistan, which was once a part of Kashmir. The people of GB had fought for independence from the Kashmir state in 1948, and joined Pakistan on their own accord. Therefore, India’s claim on this territory is not tenable.

By debundling the power generation plant cost, which is around $4 billion, the government would not be burdening the agriculturists for this part of the project cost. It would be able to pay back the loans from the profits of the electricity produced by the dam.

Though, the Council of Common Interests (CCI) has given its blessing to the construction of the Diamer-Bhasha Dam, the experts are worried that it would lead to further reduction of the water which should be released from the Indus Delta into the sea for environmental reasons. The 1991, water accord provided that 10 MAF water will be allowed to flow down from the deltas into the sea to keep the sea from encroaching the land and to ward off desertification. At present, only four to five MAF of water flows down to the Kotri barrage, creating serious environmental problems.

The trouble is that we are not thinking about conservation of water as a part of the overall water strategy. The focus, instead, is on the dams. The availability of water in the Indus system has historically not been more than 145 MAF. Thus, the emphasis on water conservation is essential – perhaps more than building the dam

The trouble is that we are not thinking about conservation of water as a part of the overall water strategy. The focus, instead, is on the dams. What we don’t realise is that the availability of water in the Indus system has historically not been more than 145 MAF. Thus, the emphasis on water conservation is essential – perhaps more than building the dam.

According to some experts, more than 40 percent surface water is wasted by way of evaporation and seepage from canals that at times results in water logging and salinity. Many years back, in the 1980s, I met two Indian businessmen who said that they make special coatings which are laid under the bricks of the canals in East Punjab to save the water from seepage. They were interested to export or set up a plant in Pakistan, but when I approached the issue with then agriculture secretary, he said, “We are not allowed to have any relationship with Indian businessmen.”

At the same time, Pakistan is not taking benefits of drip irrigation and sprinkler technology. The present government doesn’t have to go far to know how to conserve water at the fruit gardens and farms as their own Jahangir Tareen Khan has employed these technologies at his farms.

In Malir, the Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) had installed a drip technology pilot project, but, as it happened in most of the government pilot projects, the Sindh agriculturists didn’t know about it till a few years back. The interest among the agriculturists and the irrigation departments about water conservation is low because the water rates are ridiculously low as stated above and the government pours in the subsidiary on the pretext of supporting the poor farmers.

In the cities, a water metering system should be installed so that people pay according to their usage. The rich have lavish sprawling lawns and the poor have no access to drinking water.

The writer is author of What’s wrong with Pakistan? And can be reached at ayazbabar@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, October 6^th 2018.