The very name “Punjab” means the land of five rivers – flowing like verses through the land, mustard fields golden in the sun, and wells that sang with the creak of the rehri. The farmer was not merely a cultivator but a custodian of a sacred pact between earth and ancestry. Today, however, that covenant is quietly unraveling. A crisis is swelling beneath our feet, one not of storm or scarcity, but of silent, slow depletion. Punjab is running out of water.
The groundwater table is falling with unnerving consistency. In districts like Bahawalpur and Sahiwal, aquifers are sinking by up to one metre annually. The Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources warns that vast stretches of Punjab could face critical water stress by 2040. And more than 88% of this vanishing water is consumed not by homes or industry, but by agriculture.
And not by any agriculture – but by crops that guzzle rather than sustain.
Consider sugarcane. Once a seasonal blessing, it has become an unrelenting burden. Each kilogram demands between 1,500 and 2,500 litres of water. Cultivated over two million acres, sugarcane now consumes more than 12 trillion litres annually – much of it extracted unsustainably. Yet the crop thrives, propped up not by logic or suitability, but by powerful mill owners and political patronage.
Punjab is running out of water.
Rice tells a similar tale. Revered as a staple, traditional Basmati requires an astonishing 3,000 to 5,000 litres of water per kilogram. Pakistan grows over 9 million tonnes of rice each year, but consumes less than half. The remainder is exported. Yet even the portion we grow for domestic use comes at a devastating ecological price. The truth is plain: Pakistan could import the required quantity of rice from countries like Vietnam or Thailand at 30 to 40 percent lower cost, all while conserving untold reserves of groundwater.
We are, in effect, draining the lifeblood of Punjab to grow what the global market could supply more efficiently. And the cost is no longer just economic. It is generational.
On this very land, with far less water, we could cultivate crops that nourish both soil and soul. Mung beans, chickpeas, sesame, and millets require a fraction of the water and offer significantly better returns under current climatic conditions. Replacing even one acre of sugarcane with mung beans or sesame could cut water use by over 60 percent while improving soil fertility and fetching strong market prices.
Yet the farmer is trapped. In the absence of crop zoning, water pricing, or enlightened policy, choices are shaped by habit, politics, and the illusion of profitability.
Other nations have awoken. India has restricted rice cultivation during peak stress months in Punjab and Haryana. Australia has taxed water extraction and phased out unsuitable crops. Pakistan continues to behave as though water is eternal. It is not.
So we must ask, with clarity and courage: are we the heirs of this land, or merely its exploiters? Our forefathers planted in harmony with the sky. Today, we defy both rainfall and reason, drawing water from depths nature never meant to yield. This is not a rejection of tradition. It is a call to wisdom. A call to re-align our crops with our climate and our ambition with sustainability. To persist blindly is to court
In this moment of reckoning, I turn not to policy alone, but to prayer. There is a verse that echoes across generations, now more than ever a humble cry to the Almighty:
“Mere des ute malka,
Utre naa koi azaab;
Tera vasda Kaaba sohna,
Mera wasda rahe Punjab.”
May this land, beloved and bountiful, remain not only fertile in soil but in foresight.
The writer is a student at Aitchison College, Lahore, and President of the Law Society.