Pakistan faces a severe water crisis due to mismanagement of water resources and inter-provincial disputes between Punjab and Sindh provinces. The water crisis stems from poor policies, societal factors like bad governance, and the provinces' political rivalry over water sharing. Sindh receives less than its share of water from the Indus River while Punjab controls upstream flows. This dispute dates back to British rule and remains unresolved, negatively impacting agriculture, health, and the economy. Solutions require political will, consensus building, and new dams to store water and generate hydropower while ensuring Sindh's water needs are met.

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4.  Water is not only the essential source of life but it always plays central role in social,
economic and environmental development around the world.
 Pakistan is considered one of the most ‘water stressed’ countries in the world. Water
scarcity often gets translated into water disputes between the provinces. Pakistan
faces a multidimensional water crisis that claims hundreds of thousands of lives each
year. Water shortage has become a key hurdle in the continued economic growth.
• THE ROOT CAUSES OF THE WATER CRISIS IN PAKISTAN
ARE TWOFOLD:
circumstantial, which are linked to poor water resources management policies;
and structural, which are tied to factors deeply ingrained in politics (trans-
boundary and inter-provincial) and society (bad water governance). Addressing
these challenges requires new knowledge and better tools (technologies, policies and
institutions) covering social, economic, political and environmental aspects of water
resources management.

5. 
 Pakistan is mainly an agrarian country and about 70% of country
population residing in rural areas depends for their livelihood on
agriculture.
 Water, on which agriculture mainly depends, is obtained through three
main sources i.e. river, rainfall and underground.
 Inter-provincial water disputes between Punjab and Sindh in Pakistan
exists, since irrigation system developed in both regions. Both the provinces
have agriculture-based economy, which is mainly dependent on the waters
from river Indus. During colonial years, the British rulers used the
hydrological structures to implement their policy of “divide and rule”.
Water from one region was diverted to the other to suppress the rise of
nationalism during the struggle for independence against the British rule.
After Pakistan was formed, as a result of partition of India in 1947, Punjab is
being alleged for diverting water resources for its use at the cost of Sindh
 The increasing burden on available resources is cited as a reason for this,
but the power asymmetry between Punjab and Sindh too is an important
factor for water disputes. Sindh is receiving only 40% of its due share from
the Indus river.
OVERVIEW OF WATER RESOURCES IN PAKISTAN

6. 
 Genesis And Progression Of Interprovincial
Water Disputes:
 The dispute was essentially between Sindh and Punjab dating
 1901 - Bhakra Dam on Sutlej River
 1919 – Sutlej Valley project
 1919 - Thal canal project
 1920 - Sukkur barrage project
 1925 - Greater Thal Canal Lesser Project.
 1939 - Sindh lodged a formal complaint for not developing inter-provincial river
project without satisfaction of lower riparian
 1945 - Sindh- Punjab Agreement under the guidance of Rau Commission 1948, -
Inter-Dominion Agreement also known as Delhi Agreement
 1960 – Indus Water Treaty
 1991- Pakistan water appointment accord
 1992- Establishment of IRSA
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In May 1994, after the proposal by Punjab government to reorganize the ten-daily
figures in order to establish it on historical usage, tensions between Punjab & Sindh
again raised.
However the agreement was maintained, but decision was challenged in court and
Sindh accused Punjab of controlling water supply by enjoying its upstream riparian
position. Thus the WWA also could not be implemented properly in practice in its
true letters & spirits and hence the water dispute between the two provinces is still
present today.

7.  The water dispute between the two provinces exists since pre-partition, setting a fairly good
example of upstream-downstream or upper riparian-lower riparian rivalry.
 Moreover, the conflict between Sindh and Punjab regarding distribution of Indus River water is
said to be very complicated issue as both provinces have rivalry on allocation of water resources
before partition and the dispute is still not settled. The Sindhi authorities have serious reservations
that the construction of Kalabagh and other dams have negative impacts on Sindh irrigation.
 In this case, Sindh has rivalry with Punjab as the former receives water from lower riparian and
accused Punjab of receiving larger share of water as being enjoying the position of upstream;
furthermore, Sindh also blames Punjab as a cause of desertification, water logging, salinity, famine,
certain kind of diseases, and moreover electricity load shedding in Sindh is also because the Punjab
bodies being an upper riparian controls the water of Sindh and therefore less crops are grown in
Sindh due to diversion of Indus river. Another charge by Sindh is that Punjab is wasting water by
generating electricity from Mangla and Tarbela dams and consequently depriving Sindh of water.
The certain moves and initiative taken for several times by Punjab for building an irrigation
infrastructure on Indus River was challenged and simply opposed every time by Sindhis.
 When the president Musharaff government however in 2005, gave the approval of constructing
Kalabagh and Bhasha dams, the decision was challenged by Sindh bodies in court in which they
put forth their doubts and fears regarding the suffering from water deprivation. However the work
on Bhasha dam started but as far as the issue of building of Kalabagh dam, its construction is still
controversial.
 The recent decision by LHC is again opposed by Sindh assembly in which they have raised the
issue of survivability of province of Sindh.

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THE VISION 2025:
I. The Vision 2025 plan was prepared without taking the provinces into
confidence. Following the declaration of Vision 2025 by the WAPDA, a
committee of eight experts from Punjab undertook the task of analyzing
the document. According to their report, Vision 2025 is a blurred vision.
Under its Vision 2025 program, Pakistan has planned numerous projects
and approved them for construction. These projects include Kalabagh
dam, Basha dam, Sukurdu dam, Akhori dam, Chiniot reservoir, Mirani
dam, Gomal Zam dam, Kachhi canal, Chashma right bank canal, greater
Thal canal, among others.7 Total availability of water is not enough in the
system to entertain the luxury of so many projects on the Indus River
System. Thus, the political parties due to mutual distrust among the
provinces have politicized many of these projects. For example, Kalabagh
Dam has been a subject of great controversy and political parties of KPK
and Sindh have resolved to scrap this project. The PPP Government
elected in 2008, with the consent of Awami National Party, announced to
scrap Kalabagh Dam project once and for all.

9. 
 Political impacts of water scarcity:
 Due to irregularities in river flows & politics involved in water
sharing between the two provinces, and scarcity of water, the
agriculture in Pakistan has been worse affected. Because the country
is falling short of water resources, Punjab and Sindh in contemporary
are confronting with the problems of low productivity of certain
crops, resultantly there are serious problems of food shortage,
availability of drinking water in Sindh and certain areas of Punjab.
The construction of KBD also involves some sort of politics; while on
the other hand Sindh also has resentments regarding damming of
Indus River as they consider the construction of dams an offensive
and illegitimate action by Punjab. Another important political impact
of water scarcity is that the lower riparian Sindh would caught in
drought and environmental losses such as desertification, soil erosion
etc. If such patterns continue, then it would pose a serious challenge
on the part of federal government to control the situation as Sindhis
grievances and vulnerabilities are increasing.
Impacts of conflict

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 DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS:
The migration in Sindh, population movements and rising population in
Sindh is causing burden on the economy and population movements giving rise to
ethnic and group identity conflicts. The available water resources are not enough to
meet the demands of rising populations.
 ECONOMIC IMPACTS:
Agriculture sector is the backbone of Pakistan economy, but due to increasing
shortfall in water resources for past several years, the country export level is
declining and currently Pakistan is facing a deficit in balance of payments as imports
are more than exports. As far as agriculture is concerned, the estimated 2.5 million
acres of land is under the threat of becoming infertile due to scarcity of water,
therefore leaving adverse effects on the economy of Pakistan.
 HEALTH IMPACTS:
Water scarcity has serious and adverse impacts on health in Pakistan. Many
dangerous diseases like cholera, typhoid, malaria, and skin diseases etc. spreading
among children are due to drinking dirty water which results in the death of
children and hence raising the rate of infant death. And further it has been revealed
that in hospitals about more than 40% patients are suffering from water-borne
diseases.

11. 
 Recommendations
 As a student of social sciences, I put some recommendations keeping in view the recent situation of the
country.
 The federal government should take serious measures to resolve the issue between Sindh and Punjab in
order to avoid any worst incident in future.
 Bold decisions to construct more dams should be taken in order to meet the demands of rising population.
 The federal government should take Sindh into confidence i.e. they would not face any problem regarding
accessibility of river water and they would be provided with water shares as given in WAA, and hence build
more dams.
 If we want to survive, then we must build Kalabagh and certain other hydro-electric dams as the country
is in dire need of reservoirs in order to generate electricity.
 For this, the recent 29th November decision of Lahore High Court should not be rejected.
 Moreover, federal government should either bring a proposal of water sharing between the two province
or take serious steps to implement the 1991 WWA.
 If we want to prevent from a severe shock on economy, then government and policymakers must
compensate for losses in agriculture sector and further there is a need for bringing several schemes to
promote agriculture sector.
 In this regard, private sector should also come forward with sincere plans of helping farmers by providing
them certain incentives.
 To execute all these measures, above all we have a dire need of sincere, competent and visionary
leadership; a leadership whose first priority is national interests rather than personal interests.

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CONCLUSION:
In my opinion, hence going through all the issue on water sharing and water
scarcity & conflict between Sindh and Punjab, The successive governments of
Pakistan failed to resolve the water sharing conflict between Punjab and Sind. They
adopted a strategy of avoiding the solution in order to resist political pressure
/opposition. It has great implications for the national politics of Pakistan. It affected
the inter-provincial relations of the federation of Pakistan. Pakistan is passing
through critical phase of water shortage and power crises that has affected the
economy of the state directly and indirectly. Yet it has become an issue of political
bargain between provinces. National and regional political parties have manipulated
the water sharing conflict of the provinces for the political purposes, ignoring the
fact that the agriculture economic base of the Pakistan is in bad shape today. The
disastrous flood of 2010 and 2014 have left a realization to federal government that
Kalabagh Dam, Diamer Bhasha Dam and other Dams on Indus river would help to
prevent such deadly catastrophes as Kalabagh Dam has the potential to store the
water and avoid the wastage of water. Present government is expected to take up
the issue for democratic debate in the parliament to evolve consensus of the political
parties to resolve this long awaited issue, taking into account all technicalities.
Government constituent bodies the CCI, WAPDA, IRSA and Provincial Irrigation
Departments can play productive role to settle the water conflict between the
provinces for the stability and prosperity of Pakistan.