Today, Pakistan’s most daunting challenge is to establish strong and sustainable economic growth strategy to expand the size of economy and enhance national GDP. For this to be realized, government of Pakistan is up against a tall order including poverty alleviation and fulfillment of other strategic economic aims. It is of utmost importance that any public policy for economic revival finds place for creation of job opportunities and enhancing overall national productivity.
All these goals of creating new job, getting higher GDP and enhancing productivity requires some fundamental structural changes in administrative framework of the country. During the last 3 decades, the total population of Pakistan has grown from 65 million to 210 million and by 2025, this is going to be above 225 million.
Apart from robust legislative and administrative changes, there is a fundamental requirement for Pakistan to conserve the water and its origin sources to achieve this economic vision of sustainable growth because majority of Pakistan’s population is related to agriculture. According to Asian Development Bank (ADB), almost 68% of population is still live in rural areas where 46% people are part of agriculture saving 60% of foreign exchange on food security.
In KPK, this ration of rural population is 80% and 75% of province’s population is dependent on agriculture. Like other parts of the country, KPK’s population is about to grow by 2025. 25% of total agricultural land is unusable due to various problems like water-logging and salinity. This has reduced Pakistan potential. In KPK, this problem is with 56% of area which can be cultivated but due to non-availability of water or very limited availability, the province’s agro potential cannot be fully exploited. There is 68 million hectares area which is under cultivation and more than 80% of this area depends on irrigation as not enough rainfall water available. KPK’s share in total land is 17.1 million hector but only 6.16 million hectares is able for agriculture and 50% of this cultivation is dependent on irrigation water while only 15% of land get water from rain fall. Rest 30% of land is laying uncultivated.
If we closely monitor, currently, Pakistan is faced with following water management challenges
- Decaying and inefficient irrigation systems,
- Poor performance of irrigation supply services,
- Low water use and water production capacity
- Excessive use and poor quality of ground water
- Decreased water storage capacity
Pakistan as a whole is among top ten countries facing severe water scarcity in next few decades and the above mentioned problems have taken a more challenging form in KPK where major water management related issues have surfaced. Few of them are following
- Decreased capacity of water and its storage,
- Unequal distribution of water and reduced collection of land taxes which results in poor maintenance of water courses.
- Limited institutional capacity to operate the irrigation system optimally.
- Limited revenue availability with regard to development of new water management practices,
- Poor methods of rain-fed agriculture and agricultural management of irrigation.
The first priority of the province is the water supply sector and federal government is onboard with its “Vision 2030” program which recognizes the problems of this sector and promotes the concept of “more crop per drop” and water storage. Consistent efforts, political ownership, and provision of adequate resources to pursue all the objectives in Vision 2030 program are critical requirements in the long run for the province to overcome its water related problems.
Strategic approach has to be adopted to increase the capacity of irrigation as well as management of irrigation water resources. It is important to ensure maximum use of water through ventilation. It is also important to ensure maximum use of water through management of irrigation water resources.
To put these suggestions into practice following steps must be taken on priority basis.
- Conservation of water resources,
- Acquisition of water related infrastructure benefits,
- To further improve the capacity of stakeholders,
- Use of improved agricultural practices, effective participation and
- Effective management of groundwater.
In 2012, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa aimed to make 70,000 hectares of arable land by 2015 to meet the needs of the province’s population. Unfortunately, very less of this land was actually made available for the agricultural usages and one of the core reason behind this failure was lack of proper water management plan.
In this back drop, ADB has proposed various steps for KPK government to implement. A brief summary of these steps is as under;
- Adequate water supply for irrigation and Promotion of water storage,
- 40 to 45% increase in irrigation system to ensure equitable distribution of water and increase irrigation area
- Better utilization of flood water and its draining of rainwater from mountainous areas. Storage and improvement of drainage management and flood reduction
- Increasing the institutional capacity of water supply agencies such as the Department of Irrigation Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPID)
All these steps must be taken on war footings by KPK government to turn around the deteriorating water availability in the province for agricultural usage.
