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Water: A limiting factor for Survival
Sultan Barq | June 18, 2002
The Irrigation System of Pakistan - part of the largest contiguous gravity flow system in the World was constructed on the principle of maintaining equity between the areas and therefore, canal water was always considered as a Public property. The system forms the life-line for the survival and sustenance of the economy and food security or prevention of famine from Pakistan entirely depends upon its performance. The system suffers mainly due to the following major problems.
The above issues are briefly explained in the following sections:
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Inherent Gap Between Demand and Supply of Water
Pakistan is a land excess but water deficit country. The available water resources are about 30 percent of the need, if all the land resources were to be brought under till. As such there is a severe pressure on the irrigation supplies and the farmers tend to receive more than the due share. It was for this reason that the irrigation network as it is built is based on the principles of equitable distribution rather on the theoretical optimization of the resource and/or commercial sale of water as a commodity. Water is therefore, first or second source of feuds in the rural society of Pakistan. Some of such disputes even result in murders. The bureaucracy used to play the role of equitable delivery and the Canal Laws were therefore, so powerful that an irrigation official could summarily punish any body stealing or misusing the resource. With the passage of time, the ethics and morals of the management have deteriorated to the extent that it appears impossible to bring back the old glorious work ethics and programs are being prepared for the transfer of management of the distribution system to the farming community or privatization of the system. The concepts of "on-demand" supplies that essentially means that the water will be supplied on the basis of the capacity of the buyer particularly in a market where demand is more than the supply shall allow the contractors and/or managers to charge exploitive prices as the exploitive price of water is at time equivalent to the life of the needy. Due to the constitution of our rural culture, the proposal shall also introduce trends for forcing the small/subsistence farmers out of the farming system and therefore, induce massive migrations to the urban areas. Reducing the subsistence farms may be a desirable long term objective, but it is equally important to create massive employment opportunities by rural industrialization as our cities are not ready to take 50-60 percent of the rural population and provide them work/employment and other services." My analysis reveals that our cities cannot take such a high influx and it will not only adversely effect the urban peace but shall have far reaching environmental and habitat problems due to transcultural migration of the villagers to urban centers.
- Neglected and Poor Quality of O&M
It is an established that the quality of maintenance of the irrigation works have deteriorated due to a number of reasons including, probable shortage of funds, changing socioeconomic and sociocultural environment, encroachments, failure on the part of irrigation departments for the control of trespassing, misuse, and theft etc. There are both administrative and technical solution that can be applied in order to solve the problems of poor O&M.
In olden days there used to be a law that all irrigation officers shall spend a minimum of 14 nights in the field. For this a network of comfortable rest houses was constructed along the system. The junior staff used to maintain the system in ship-shape condition according to the "Manual of Instructions/Orders" in order to avert the risk of losing the job.
I doubt, if any of the officers spends only one night a month now with the planned purpose and objective. A system, in which there are no checks and no punishments for neglect, is bound to collapse. It is one of the main reasons for the deterioration of the Irrigation Department and its works. As a result two major bridges and number of important flood works have simply "disappeared" during last few months and nobody has been punished so far. This is going to further increase inefficiency and corruption in the system
- Gap between Revenues and O&M Costs
If the objective of privatization of Irrigation System is to find a quickly adaptable means of adjusting and recovering the O&M, it can be very easily done by proper assessment or introducing flat rate system and stopping of the massive leakage and misappropriation of funds.
In Punjab the expenditure of the operation and maintenance of Irrigation system is of the order of Rs. 1 billion (not including SCARPs, flood protection of urban areas and industries etc.). The Water Revenue Assessed during 1989-90 for the Province was Rs. 743.55 million and the remissions granted were about Rs. 33.23 million. The net water rate assessed in Punjab was about Rs. 710.32 million. The total area commanded by the system was 21.61 million acres and the area irrigated during both Rabi and Kharif (1989-90) was 25.56 million acres. The overall irrigation intensity was therefore, 118 percent. The average revenue assessed for the Province for the period works out to Rs. 27.79 per acre and the remissions on the Provincial level were of the order of Rs. 1.30 per acre, the gross assessed water rate therefore, works out as Rs. 29.09 per acre per year.
A flat rate of the order of Rs.50 per acre per crop, with minor adjustments for perennial and non perennial systems as well as provision for higher rates for farmers of upper reaches shall easily help the government recover the total O&M. The economy of Pakistan needs innovative solutions for resolving the growing problems of fiscal and management in nature. When the problems are definable it is the strong, committed and honest management that is required to control the accelerated deterioration of a critical and essential resource like water.
- Corruption/Leakages in the System
The corruption in the irrigation department has crept in at all levels and there is a need for adopting some surgical and highly punitive methods for rescuing the system. This can be done by a highly supervised and regulated management with an institutionalized system of quick rewards and punishments. Such a system pre-supposes the presence of targets for all levels of the management.
The proposed transfer of the minors and distributaries through PIDAs shall help in the control of corruption as the revised setup of autonomous authority shall provide for an efficient interaction of both the managers and users of the resource. The performance of the system is subject to bringing about real changes instead of cosmetic one. If misapplied, the proposed system is bound to generate negative results if the same staff is assigned the employment in the new setup. It is like changing the names of the Police Stations to Reform Houses and manning them with the same people. What improvement in terms of services would one expect under new institutional arrangement prepared without sincere objectivity? There is need of some innovative solutions for the eradication of corruption from irrigation department in order to save the system as well as agriculture.
- Disinterested, Bureaucracy for Improving the System
Because of the changing priorities there is a growing tendency of loosing interest of the officials of the irrigation department in the affairs related to the farmers. The Warabandi and other complaints lie pending for decision and/or actions for years and the farmers face the vagaries of many exploiters enroute. This has resulted in loss to the system and economy.
- Deterioration of the System of Girdawri/Assessment
There is a law in the irrigation department which orders the officers of all ranks to check a certain proportion of the Girdawri/Assessment. The punishment of concealing an acre of cultivated/irrigated land was the removal from the service. Consequently, substantial assessment and recoveries were made not only to cover the O&M but also the capital cost of the works.
According to the present practice of Girdawri, when Patwari visits a village/Chak, announcement is made over the loudspeaker (at times that of the mosque) for collecting the money (Faslana) for him at a rate announced by the Patwari. The rate varies between Rs. 20-40 per acre. While his chicken is being cooked, he verbally asks the farmers about what is cultivated in their which field. The farmers chose their options to conceal because, they are compensating the official and they know that nobody is going to check on the ground.
To test the present practice, I asked about 30 Irrigation Department officials about the last time they went to the field to personally check the Girdawri/assessment. I was amazed to learn that no one remembered as to when was it last time that they went for Partal/Shartal. Some of them said, "They have done it only for once since joining the service." Some of the young XENs even did not know about the practice and confessed that the their Revenue Clerk brings huge bundles of papers to them for signing and they do it sitting home.
I have recently studied the water use patterns in some of the water starved areas like Israel, USA, Turkey, Egypt etc. Pakistan can easily conserve half of its water resources by improved management and new technologies. Whereas, World Bank and many other IFIs have always stood by Pakistan during the period of hardship and the track record of the assistance is generally encouraging. However, there have been some projects that have not delivered the stipulated results and most of such projects have been in the agriculture and water sectors. It will not be out of place to mention that Pakistan has to eradicate malpractices and corruption out of the critical sector and resource like water in order to survive. Water has certainly become a limiting factor and every-day newspapers carry news about protests rally and hunger strikes due to water shortages. Next step of ensuring the availability of resource for survival shall be the wars. In a country, that has only 30 percent of the resource and still pushes 40 percent of such a valuable commodity to the Sea is a very painful reality. I sit and wonder about the future of the nation without few storages with the given mix of economy. The truth and scenario about the future with water is nothing but massive hunger and disintegration. We shall all have to work together to save the country and Kalabagh Dam shall be the first step in that direction. The next step shall be the institutional reforms for ensuring justices, integrity and spirit of service to the nation and its growing volume of the poor as the status quo is not sustainable.
The present government with the kind of responsibility on its shoulders is probably the last opportunity for the nation to place itself on the fast track of development and prosperity. The will of the leadership and their determination can bring about the miracle. Otherwise, the growing poverty shall always be translated as the choice of the leadership.
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