The country is going to face the worst water shortage in next couple of years due to insufficient water management practices and storage capacity, agriculture, experts said on Sunday.
Former Director of Kalabagh Dam Project, Engr. Mumtaz Ahmed Khan described Pakistan's water shortage as "deeply troubling." He quoted South Asia scholar Anatol Lieven as saying that water shortages pose greatest future threat to the viability of Pakistan as a state and a society. Independent analysts and experts say that Pakistan is facing a severe water shortage and that some form of water management should be implemented soon.
According to Water and Power Development Authority, with an increased population, Pakistan is heading towards a situation of water shortage. Per capita surface water availability was 5,260 cubic meters in 1951 when the population was 34 million, which reduced to 1,038 cubic meters in 2010 when the estimated population is 172 million.
Engr. Mumtaz said that Pakistan must decide now to appoint patriotic and real water management experts to take up its case before the International Court of Arbitration (COA) against India on the construction of Kishanganga Hydropower project on River Neelum in violation of the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty. Pakistan has the right to oppose Kishanganga Project because its diversion will reduce power generation capacity of 969-MW Neelum-Jhelum Power Project, located on the same river downstream Muzaffarabad in Azad Kashmir, by 16 percent.
Expressing his views, Patron-in-chief of Kala Bagh Dam Movement, Syed Mehmood Ali said that due to the poor handling of case with India as well as COA, Pakistan could not gain points because of a team of jurists not being sincere from the start. He said that in case of losing the case at COA, Neelum-Jhelum Power Project will face a loss of energy worth more than rupees six billion every year.
Ali said, "Government should select pure people for pleading its case as the time has come and any delay would help only India," official said. The COA would soon take up Pakistan's case against India over the construction of Kishanganga Hydropower Project on River Neelum in violation of the 1960 Indus Water Treaty. "This treaty with Indians remains just on papers. India has diverted Pakistani water and is constructing more dams which would further worsen situation in Pakistan".
Elaborating, he said that under the treaty, three western rivers - Chenab, Jehlum and Indus are allocated to Pakistan and India is not allowed to build storage on them. "A conventional engineering view is that a diversion barrage or a run of the river hydroelectric generation project does not create any storage." Baglihar Dam is a run of the river hydro-electric project and it is India's responsibility to establish that it will neither reduce flow of water to Pakistan nor divert flow of water to Indian territory, he maintained.
Overall, about 200 kilometres of riverbed in Azad Kashmir will be affected by Kishanganga Project. The river will turn dry over 40 km - a negation of international environmental laws. Under the law, at least 70 percent of river flows are to be protected in case any project is taken in hand.
Patron-in-chief KBD movement further said that it is a fact that underground water in Punjab province is going down due to Indian conspiracy of provision of free electricity to Indian Punjab for the tube wells.