EDITORIAL: The Sindh chief minister’s declaration of Tharparkar as a drought-affected district following the destruction of an estimated 85 to 90 percent of cultivated crops in the area, once again highlights the precarious existence of communities in one of the province’s most climate-vulnerable regions.
While the relief measures that have been announced are necessary, they also underscore a deeper failure, where despite decades of familiarity with the district’s vulnerabilities, little has been done to build lasting resilience against recurring droughts.
This is around the fifth time in the past decade that Tharparkar has faced conditions warranting such a response, yet the authorities continue to fall back on episodic relief rather than sustainable remedies. The district has long been vulnerable to low and erratic rainfall, but its people should not be expected to simply accept this as their fate while successive administrations fail to put in place durable solutions.
The nature of the challenge is also changing. Where the region historically experienced a severe drought roughly once every seven to eight years, provincial disaster authorities’ records suggest that this interval has now shrunk to just two to three years, a trend attributed to global warming and shifting monsoon patterns.
The challenge, moreover, is no longer simply about insufficient rainfall, but increasingly of its unpredictability, with rains either failing to arrive during the crucial sowing period or petering out just as crops approach maturity. This growing climatic uncertainty makes it all the more imperative that planning for Tharparkar addresses the longer-term resilience of its agricultural economy.
Yet the Sindh CM declaring the region as drought-hit has ended up revealing how even the most basic of infrastructure remains lacking. His directive to restore non-functional reverse osmosis plants begs the question: why are these facilities not maintained as a matter of routine?
Ensuring that existing water infrastructure remains functional is the bare minimum, and communities should not have to wait for a drought declaration before the machinery of government turns its attention to their access to drinking water.
Similarly, while the proposed Naukot-Mithi pipeline could provide a more sustainable water source, why has it taken so long to advance a project addressing such a longstanding need? The bureaucratic machinery responsible for planning, executing and maintaining such schemes must answer for this persistent lack of foresight. Nor should authorities limit themselves to familiar, short-term interventions.
Successful water conservation, rainwater harvesting and drought-resilient agricultural practices adopted globally in other arid regions must be studied and adapted to Tharparkar’s particular conditions.
There is also a larger contradiction that cannot be ignored. The Thar coal project, which has become increasingly important to Pakistan’s energy security, generates billions of rupees in royalties.
Yet the communities living alongside this resource remain among the country’s most impoverished. An estimated Rs50 billion in royalties was collected from the project between 2023 and 2025, but the district’s development allocation has remained a fraction of these earnings.
The promise that Tharparkar’s natural wealth would transform the lives of its people has clearly not been fulfilled, with residents still struggling to secure something as basic as reliable drinking water.
The government’s response cannot remain limited to providing immediate relief to Tharparkar’s people. The district needs a comprehensive, adequately funded drought-resilience strategy, with clear timelines, functioning infrastructure, accountability for administrative failures and a transparent mechanism to channel a meaningful share of its coal wealth into local development.
Rainfall cannot be commanded at will, but preparedness, investment and competent administration are matters of choice. Tharparkar’s people have endured the vagaries of the climate for generations. They should not also have to endure the consequences of an administration that appears to rediscover their plight every time the rains fail.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026