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Wrong Planning Leads to Drought
(Fateh Ullah Khan)

Pakistan is the most unfortunate country to waste 60% of its life saving water in seepage and floods due to chronic and gross water mismanagement. At the same time, it is the victim of repeated wrong planning of its land and water resources to produce food. All this is due to the pathetic and inert attitude of the technocrats, bureaucrats, politicians and the government as no national policy on water development was framed even after signing the Water Accord. It is lamentable that even after 40 years the fertile land under irrigated agriculture in the Indus Basin, ruined by waterlogging and salinity, has not been recovered. This shows the incapability of the
government to handle and develop water resources by implementing Integrated Comprehensive Water Management (ICWM). If the status quo prevails famine will be unavoidable for the next 15 years. The preamble of IRSA Act requires to set right all the connected and ancillary problems of irrigated agriculture that urgently require the implementation of paras 2,4,6,12 and 14(e) of the Water Accord. These paras collectively mean the undertaking of
ICWM. Unfortunately, during the last 10 years, no action has been taken to initiate the implementation of the Water Accord by all concerned. In fact, wrong project-planning concepts for the drainage of land, storage
of water and water management were adopted during the last 30 years, thus wasting time and money. While planning the projects, neither the essentially required infrastructures were provided nor technical procedures as per the technical definitions of drainage, storage and water management were adopted. Consequently, the projects failed due to incorrect planning and execution. It is highly ridiculous that in the age of science and
specialisation, non-professionals head engineering organisations and one responsible for the management and development of water resources. Wrong appointments of unskilled persons against professional jobs has resulted in
mismanagement of water resources due to lack of understanding and lack of technical counter check at the crucial and decision making level. This in turn, has caused wastage and shortage of water thus aggravating the drought and famine conditions. Moreover, incorrect project planning for SCARPs and National Drainage Programme (NDP) has destroyed fertile lands and irrigated agriculture. Resulting in anti-drainage effects on land due to pumping groundwater for irrigation use and lack of sub-surface drainage below the root zone of crops to evacuate salts.

It is shocking that due to lack of Water Management and storage, 87 maf or two third of 142 maf of the total available fresh water is wasted in seepage and floods annually. Water Accord para 14(e) requires to avoid this colossal wastage. The huge wastage is 15 times the live storage capacity of Kalabagh Dam and if saved can irrigate a new barren area of about 25 million acres besides averting drought and famine conditions. The huge wastage of water and fixing wrong priorities of storage projects prove planning failure at the decision making level. Tarbela Dam can be quoted as an example for the short life of its storage due to rapid silting causing shortage of water. For minimising silt flow, no watershed management was undertaken in the catchment area of Tarbela dam, nor storage built on the upstream to arrest the silt.

The Tarbela reservoir alone has lost about 36% of its gross storage capacity i.e., about 4.2 maf, forming a 200 feet high island (delta) of silt in the reservoir, causing severe shortage of water. For the very same reasons,
Kalabagh dam has become incapacitated and controversial as its major component of storage is located on the down stream of Tarbela at Attock with less than one-third storage than Tarbela and with Capacity-inflow ratio of
1:27, that is the poorest in the world. The Attock portion of 3.5 maf of Kalabagh storage on the Indus is much more liable to rapid silting and short life span than Tarbela reservoir having more than three times the storage
capacity, i.e. 11.6 maf. To end the controversy, the Kalabagh site may be examined for the construction of a barrage, like at Cashma, but not as a storage dam. Basha, too, is no better than Tarbela from the point of view of
life-long capacity.

It is heartbreaking that the delay in the construction of a second dam on the Indus would be about (26+14) = 40 years. The abnormal delay and negligence is only due to wrong selection of the dam sites by the Ministry
of Water and Power manned by non-professionals. It has, therefore, caused a time wasting controversy because of lack of foresight and decision, and the failure to initiate and investigate an alternative long life storage dam.
The Ministry and WAPDA, both failed where to build the second dam on the Indus nor have they solved the controversy in 24 years. It is shocking that the Secretary Water and Power, a non-professional, failed to refer the
matter to IRSA that was specially created in 1991 to solve and decide technical matters related to provincial water disputes. The Indus River System Authority, in view of the preamble of IRSA Act studied the Water Accord para by para and examined all the connected and ancillary matters of the Indus water resources from 1993 to 1998. The Authority sent its findings and recommendations on irrigated agriculture in the context of Water Accord
in 30 printed reports to the Ministry and the provinces for implementation but no one took any initiative and interest to implement the vital paras 2,4,6,12 and 14 (e) of the Water Accord specially related to the execution
of storage, drainage and Water Management projects. Rather, the Secretary disbanded the professionally strong IRSA after carrying out amendments in the Act and replaced it by rubber-stamp non-professional provisions to avoid implementing the vital paras relating to storage, drainage and water management. This caused a great set back to the Water Accord and again created distrust among the provinces. The Ministry of Water and Power manned by a non-professional Secretary, Additional Secretary and two Joint Secretaries could not handle the development of water and power resources, its problems and solutions due to lack of understanding the profession. This is necessary to practice sustainable irrigated agriculture. It is most astonishing that the Ministry is still unaware that there is the world's largest carryover reservoir on the Indus with a storage capacity of
35 maf at Katzara, having an excellent CI ratio of 1:1 and with an indefinite life-span due to low siltation. This unusual storage can meet drought conditions for years. Ignoring such a profitable and spectacular site first pointed out in 1962 in a Master Plan and repeatedly again and again for the water starved and water based agriculture of the drought hit country on the verge of famine, is simply not understandable. Katzara is the only single storage that can meet to entire water requirements of paras 2,4,6,12 and 14(e) of the Water Accord besides generating 10,000 MW of power.

It is pointed out that a 35 maf storage dam at Katzara, with a barrage on the Indus in NWFP, and an all Pakistan Grand Canal can irrigate, mostly by gravity flow, vast areas of Kachi plain in the Balochistan, Thar and
Cholistan deserts and some higher areas in the four provinces by lifting water. The Indus Right Bank Irrigation System would provide irrigation facilities to these barren areas on permanent basis. It shall convert the
desert-like areas into green fields and avert poverty on a permanent basis. The flow of the Indus River needs regulation by creating huge storage, as it is highly erratic with minimum of as low as 12000 cusecs and maximum of as high as one million cusecs. About 35-maf storage at Katzara located about 10 KM down stream Skardu would control, regulate, monitor and release water as needed by the irrigation system. The Indus River can be channelised as well. The construction of a single storage at Katzara would amount to the implementation of 90% of the Water Accord. It would permanently remove drought and famine conditions and assure sustainable irrigated agriculture besides help remove poverty in these most backward areas. The best way to implement the above proposal would be to enter a barter deal with the World Bank and the ADB to execute the said scheme as a whole by the Bank. In return, Pakistan should give a certain percentage in agriculture produce from the land to be irrigated for a fixed number of years, and also provide labour and other facilities as needed. In the sixties, President Muhammad Ayub Khan declared waterlogging and salinity as enemy no;1 as it badly affected agriculture. The twin menace damaged about 60% of the highly fertile lands to various degrees. Crop yield per acre was the lowest in the world. Unfortunately, tube-well-oriented absurd and ineffective methods for the drainage of land to eradicate salinity and waterlogging were adopted. The ridiculous methods consisted of tube-wells pumping drainage effluent and reused for irrigation by circulating it through the root zone of crops in SCARPs and the NDP with no infrastructure to evacuate injurious salts out of the root zone area of crops. This anti-drainage practice has further aggravated the problem by the addition of sodicity besides increasing salinity. This is because no
infrastructure was provided below the root zone of crops to leach salts and physically evacuate the drainage effluent out of the Indus Basin. No proper method for leaching salts was adopted according to the technical definition of drainage to maintain salt and water balance and control water table below the root zone area of crops. The failure to foresee these mistakes is a direct result of the technical vacuum at the policy and decision-making level.

As a consequence of SCARPs, there has been indiscriminate use of about 42 maf of the saline drainage effluent for irrigation, pumped as groundwater through 500,000 small tube wells gradually developed due to shortage of
canal water and the absence of sub-surface drainage system for the disposal of leached effluent. The illegal use of huge drainage effluent in violation of the Canal and Drainage Act of 1887 is fast ruining the lands of Punjab as
salty drainage effluent is retained as groundwater for re-use again and again instead of being evacuated out side the area. Thus, instead of controlling salinity, SCARPs initiated the use of groundwater for irrigation, thereby further aggravating the situation. It is shocking to know that there is no sub-surface tile drainage, a very
vital and integral infrastructure for the drainage of irrigated lands to leach salts out of the root zone soil. Similarly, there is no drainage out-let to the sea to evacuate the accumulated salts and drainage effluent. It is very perplexing that the established and recognised method of surface and sub-surface tile drainage below the root zone of crops was not adopted. The wrongly conceived tube wells SCARPs, circulated salinity between the
groundwater and the root zone soil profile instead of evacuating it. Salinity is therefore, trapped in the Indus Basin as drainage effluent has become a major source of irrigation, rapidly deteriorating land and causing low crop yield by using saline groundwater pumped by tube wells. Surprisingly engineers in WAPDA and in the provinces failed to conceive the root zone drainage of saline and waterlogged lands according to the technical definition of drainage to remove and control salinity and waterlogging . This was ignored while planning and executing SCAPRs and NDP.
They failed to provide the basic facilities for leaching and the essential infrastructures to collect and evacuate drainage effluent. The Ministry of Food and Agriculture, with its 700 PhDs in the PARC and other institutes,
also failed to point out drainage of land below the root zone area of crops moreover, they never suggested or demanded to provide proper irrigation and drainage works to suit agricultural development. Pakistan boasts that it has the world’s largest canal irrigation system, but at the same time, it is the world’s most inefficient and wasteful system designed about 150 years ago. The mono culture based canal design, with fixed discharge canal system, low intensity of irrigation (70%), and fixed cropping pattern of one Kharif and two Rabi, is now used for totally changed conditions i.e., raised intensity of irrigation and multiple highly water-intensive cropping pattern requiring more water. Under the changed conditions, the supply-based or the rigid-flow canal system is no longer
workable. It has therefore become almost obsolete, as the canal cannot maintain the designed regime flow conditions. This is the reason for the rapid silting of canals soon after silt clearance each year reducing water
supply by about 20 to 25%. Therefore, it can not provide water for crops on demand basis as and when needed in proper doses. Besides, the unlined canal system wastes 52 maf of water in seepage, out of the 105 maf diverted into the network of canal system each year. Seepage from canal system has spread salinity and waterlogging rendering land out of cultivation. In addition to the 52 maf as seepage losses, due to lack of storage nearly
35 maf of water on the average is wasted annually during floods . The relevant paras 2, 4, and 6 of the Water Accord require to store water and stop wastage and to meet the needs of paras 2, 12, and 14(e). Lack of
initiative by the Ministry to implement Water Accord specially paras 2, 4, 6, 12, and 14(e) even after 10 years of signing the Water Accord is incomprehensible. According to the Water Accord, that is mostly storage specific, a minimum of 20 maf storage is urgently needed to meet para 2 and para 12 water requirements for irrigation and for leaching salts through sub-surface drainage system. So far, no planning is done to meet the basic needs of the 12 maf short fall in para 2 of the Water Accord, i.e. (117.35 - 105) = 12.35 maf. Consequently, the country is faced with severe drought and famine conditions.

Collective mis-planning of land drainage and storage, and the running of engineering organisations by the superior service non-provisionally by tradition in the federal government and the provinces, has pushed the country towards drought and famine. The non-professional have failed to oversee the wastage of water and the food and agriculture needs even after signing the Water Accord in 1991 in the context of enormous land and water resources. They did not study the prevailing conditions of irrigated agriculture in the light of IRSA Act and the Water Accord and did not take even the preliminary steps to fulfil the urgent needs. Famine and drought have attacked the whole of Balochistan, the Thar area of Sindh, Cholistan in Punjab and the whole of southern NWFP. This situation proved the complete administrative failure of the ministry of Water and Power and the provinces
where non-professionals are in charge of development. This is very strange, as development needs specialists and sub-specialists and not the generalists. These heads of engineering organisations are unable to foresee,
understand and tackle high professional matters, as they are not trained in water resource engineering and management. The Pakistan Engineering Council Act 1976, section 27, prohibits the appointment of non-professionals against professional posts but the Act is being violated indiscriminately at a very large scale simply to provide jobs to superior service non-professionals. This is being done at the cost of development where Rs 1000 billion has been wasted on wrong projects which the non-professionals could not detect while approving these projects at the policy and decision making level. All such appointments are criminal offences under the PEC Act, which needs to be rigidly enforced in the national interest and the Chairman PEC asked to prevent such postings by taking action under the provisions of the Act. The Chief Executive has given great importance to agriculture development in his 7-point agenda, placing irrigated agriculture as item no :1 for improvement. The solutions to all the ills of irrigated agriculture, especially the drought and famine-like conditions in various parts of the country, lie in proper implementation of Integrated Comprehensive Water Management of 142 maf of water for which the Chief Executive has recently directed to prepare a national policy. The problems discussed above seriously require the personal patronage of the Chief Executive to implement his agenda under the close consultation of engineers to avert the fast approaching famine. The Integrated Comprehensive Water Management, according to its technical definition, is a combined process of efficient water conveyance system,
water distribution system, drainage system to cater for the root zone area of crops, and efficient water application methods to land supported by long life storage. Surprisingly, these basic components were either ignored or wrongly conceived and executed piecemeal by the Ministry of Water and Power and WAPDA. Mere and isolated lining of watercourses can not be called water management as is presently being conceived and constructed. There is a dire need to correctly grasp the technical definitions of Water Management and drainage so as to provide the requisite infrastructures. It appears, in the present set up, that none is responsible to none - it is free for all. Therefore, there is urgent need for restructuring professional and non-professional services carrying specific responsibilities. The superior service generalists are responsible to maintain law and order and
run the public affairs that are in a mess and for which they are recruited and trained. The engineers must be held totally responsible and accountable for carrying out correct and optimum development of 142 maf of water
resources at the policy and decision making level by implementing the Water Accord. Every one must be answerable to achieve the planned objectives in his own field of specialisation.

Accountability should not be restricted to money matters alone but more to the correct project-planning concepts to achieve the desired objectives as besides financial losses, the entire economy of the nation and the food
needs are at stake. Administrative shake up is therefore necessary to avoid huge wastage of money as well as natural resources. For example, the government has already wasted Rs 257 billion on SCARPs that failed and
destroyed land and are now abandoned. SCARPs, on the quiet, have been replaced by NDP thus further wasting Rs 500 billion on this ridiculously conceived project. This needs total revision and replacement by surface and
subsurface tile drainage.

The above circumstances indicate that famine is ordained for this country as fait accompli by the year 2015 when the population would be about 200 million, the lands further deteriorated, storage rapidly silted up and 60% of life saving water continuously wasted under the supervision of unskilled administrators.

The question now is who should come, and when and how, to set things right. What is the role of the ministry of Water and Power, the Ministry of food and Agriculture, the National Security Council, the National Reconstruction
Bureau, the Planning Commission and the provinces to handle the said situation? Who is to be held responsible for the past blunders and the impending famine? Who failed to implement Water Accord and broke the IRSA Act and the top professional authority? These are serious questions to be addressed by the government before development and conserving water resources to achieve self sufficiency in agriculture on sustainable basis,
and to set the economy right. There is no alternative solution to avert a great calamity, no short cut, no cheap method but to implement the steps suggested above. The Chief Executive and his government would do a great
service if they study the problems of irrigated agriculture discussed above and order to prepare a Master Plan for implementing the right type of Water Management, drainage and storage projects as per their technical definitions
while stopping the colossal wastage of water to avert drought and famine and implement the Water Accord as well.