Looking at the incompetence, carelessness of government, and water drainage system of the country, it is clear that the situation of water scarcity and floods are artificial, to the creation of bad policies regarding water share and old irrigation system. There are many examples of this: National and international institutions and experts on water and the environment have been constantly warning through various reports, research articles, and studies for the past several years that; Due to the increase in temperature and environmental pollution, the glaciers are melting rapidly, which will cause severe water shortage in the world in the next few decades. South Asian countries will suffer the most from this water shortage problem, and the Indus Delta system in South Asia, namely the Indus River, will suffer from much more water shortage.
In 2019, a study of 210 scientists from 22 countries was published by Springer under the title “Hindukash Himalaya Assessment” According to this study, one-third to two-thirds of the Hindu Kush and Himalaya’s water reserves are in the form of ice, which may melt and lay the big floods, after these floods, water shortage will be constant which may cross the dangerous line. As this study tells about the dams on the rivers that due to a large amount of water and the rapid arrival of water, large stones, and sand, will also come down with the water, which will cause the dams to break down and lay floods. Even a small flood will become a big flood due to the swallow of the dams and will cause huge loss of life and economy.
“Pakistan is the seventh most affected country in the world due to water scarcity.” (a report by the German think tank.)
Water expert Tariq Banuri expressed his views regarding this report in an interview with DW and said that “water has a high magnitude but low frequency in Pakistan.” It means that nowadays shortage of water in Sindh is artificial because, at this time, when one side the glaciers are melting rapidly due to the increase in temperature, and on the other hand, the sea is also releasing steam with great intensity. As a result, on the one hand, water is coming from the Himalayas and Hindu Kush mountains in a large amount, on the other hand, due to heavy rains a large amount of water is coming towards the Indus river system by various headwaters. This is the reason why we have frequent floods, big and small. Now there is a question that according to the above reports, there will be a severe shortage of water in the near future and currently, there is a lot of water. So, at present, why in most areas of Sindh, there no clean water for drinking? Why ground water is becoming salt water? Why the people of Sindh are dying of thirst? Due to the lack of fresh water in the sea, the sea is swallowing 80 acres of land in Sindh every day; why did the World Bank give this report? The answer to the above questions is that shortage of water in Sindh is not natural but it is artificially and the main reason for this is that Punjabi rulers are looting the water of Sindh over the last one and a half-century, they built dams, hydro works, and canals, etc and the other reason is outdated and more than centuries-old irrigation system.
Rasool Bux Palijo Sahib has written the details on how and when dams, canals, and hydro works were built on the Indus River in his book “Sindh-Punjab water dispute from 1853 to 2003” Mr. Palijo has written this book that since 1853, the rulers of Punjab have illegally taken the water from the share of Sindh through various dams, canals, and hydro works. He further said that because of Sindh’s crying the British just threatened Punjab that leave it what you stole water before this commission, but now please you should not build any dam or any other water storage without the permission of Sindh. But the rulers of Punjab continue water steeling of Sindh and contempt the decisions and agreements of all the committees including the Cotton Commission, and Anderson Commission, till today the rulers of Punjab have continued to divert the water of Sindh through various dams and canals including Bhasha Dam and Kala Bagh Dam.
During the regime of General Ayub, the Punjabi rulers illegally sold the three rivers to India which were fill the Indus River. They sold these rivers just like stolen property. Due to illegally selling these three rivers, the people of Karu Chhan, Keti Bandar, and other areas of Sindh do not have drinking water, which was very green, fertilized, and lush areas in the past have become dry now. According to media reports, when people die in these areas, water is not available for bathing the dead body, and announcements are coming from mosques that people should come from their homes to perform ablution.
So to fill the blank of the above three reveres, Sindh should be given as much water from the Mangla dam which was Sindh gets from those three rivers which were sold to India by General Ayoub Khan without the permission of Sindh. The purpose to build the Mangla dam was to finish the loss of that sold rivers not for fertilizing the new lands of Punjab. A loan was taken from the World Bank (which we are still paying with interest in the form of heavy taxes and inflation) for a survey to determine the water needs of Kotri downstream. WAPDA corrupted that money and these funds have not been investigated till today.
According to Wahab Sheikh, we were told that the Tarbela dam is only for Sindh and not for anyone else (Sindh case page 17). However, from Tarbela, the two main robber canals, Cheshma – Jhelum,(CJ) 21 thousand cusecs, Tunsa – Panjand (TP)- 12 thousand cusecs, mean that 33,000 cusecs of water are looted by Punjabi rulers from Tarbela every day. These robberies must be stopped by the rulers of Punjab and the inter-province water issue must be solved.
Dams and environmental crisis
Let’s come to look at the negative impact on the environment due to dams and the loss of water due to not storing water in the ground in the light of a scientific point of view.
“If we want to avoid scarcity, we have to put the dam water back into the river, restore the delta system, and plant forests.” Said Dr. Hassan Abbas a well-known water expert.
Dams on rivers cause floods and earthquakes and also add to environmental pollution. In order to save excess water and protect the environment, it is necessary to increase the number of trees and increase the forests, and strictly restrict the cutting of forests. From the formation of Pakistan till today, those beaurocrates and rulers who are responsible for cutting down the forests should be given hard punishments. Due to the addition of trees, the trees absorb the water by themselves, and they also help in the rain by slowly releasing steam from the leaves. Along with the planting of trees, arrangements should be made to keep groundwater as fresh water, and along with this rainwater should be used for agriculture to prevent it from being lost in the sewers.
At the time of the formation of Pakistan, 27% of the forests were owed in Pakistan’s land. The Punjabi rulers and the Sindhi feudalists have cut forests and prevented the water flow in the delta by constructing dams and other anti-bio reserves, that’s why forests of mangroves have been destroyed and now less than 1 percent of forests are remaining hardly and the Indus River which was the seventh big center of the mangrove forests in the world, but due to the theft of water of the Sindh, due to the lack of flow of river water to the sea and cutting down the forests, there is just symbol of mangrove trees left at this time.
Mangrove trees are extremely valuable and vital to life because they provide rainfall, prevent temperature rise, produce oxygen earlier than many other types of trees, and protect the oceans. Mangrove forests also have their own advantages in preventing seawater from moving forward.
Deforestation has a negative impact on the environment, the rains are not falling on time, the temperature has increased, the water shortage has become a permanent problem,
In such a situation, as soon as the monsoon rains begin, the incompetence of the federal and provincial governments and the duality of the so-called national media (Urdu media) have been revealed to the public. The anchors, analysts, and government representatives sitting on the media used to shout that billions of rupees worth of water are being wasted in the sea, and build a dam to save it, but at present thousands of cusecs of rainwater are being wasted by sewage in all small and large cities of Pakistan including Karachi, Hyderabad, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, Quetta, Multan, etc. This Waste of rainwater in drains is not a problem for them. Even if the sea and the cities built on the coast do not get their own water, they are clamoring that instead of giving their water to the sea and other areas of Sindh, dams should be built to fertilize the new lands of Punjab. Even they do not speak a single sentence to prevent this water from being wasted in the drains.
The fertile lands of Sindh for centuries may be barren or dry, and the sea maybe comes forward and swallow the big cities of Sindh and Balochistan due to dams. The two districts of Sindh Badin and Thatta will swallow by the sea in 2050 and Karachi whose population is more than 2 crores also at threat to Swallow by sea by 2060: said Dr. Asif Inam, chairman of the national institute of oceanography (NIO), during a briefing to the members of the senate and another parliamentarian in February 2015, about the negative impact of the increase in sea level over Sindh and Balochistan. He further added in his briefing that a lot of land in Sindh had already swallowed by sea, hence the government has to build dams only to save the interest of the dam mafia.
There is a shortage of water in Sindh, due to building the dams on the Indus River, which is having an economic loss to Sindh and Pakistan as well as having a negative impact on the environment of the whole world. At least 25 million acre-feet (MAF) of water should be given to the sea every year. If the current situation remains (no water is given to the sea), Karachi and Thatta these big cities will swallow by the sea in a few decades as I already mentioned above in reports by the government of Pakistan.
Due to the non-release of water to Kotri downstream, the mangrove forests are dying out completely which was the center of the seventh largest mangrove forests in the world in the past. Due to lack of water and pollution, aquatic life is dying.
Is it a waste to flow water into the sea?
The hydrological cycle, a research paper published in 2003 by two environmentalists and water experts Blavers and Sandy Smith, examines whether flowing water into the ocean is a waste or beneficial.
“Hydrologic Cycle”
According to this research, water molecules do not stay in one place on the earth but they move between the earth, sea, atmosphere, mountains, and ice glaciers. This research further suggests that tampering with any part of the hydrological cycle is equivalent to disrupting the entire cycle not providing water to the ocean means disrupting the evaporating system of the ocean which is extremely useful in removing steam and rains.
Destruction of the beneficial mangrove forests means stopping the rains that are currently being received resulting in drought. It has been proven from the above research that the lack of water reaching the sea is the cause of the drought due to the lack of rains along with the deterioration of the environment.
Even though there is such a drought situation in Sindh, a new disaster is being brought upon Sindh in the form of Kalabagh Dam, Mohmand, and Bhasha Dam. “We need drinking water, not a dam.” At least 80-100 MAF of water must be released to Kotari downstream. The average water flow of kotri barrage between1953 to 1956 was 56 MAF. There the question arises where does this water come from?
Rasool Bux Palijo Sahib in his book “Sindh water case” gives the answer as follows;
From 1859 to this time, all the Punjab’s illegally constructed water reservoirs, canals, hydro works, and dams that were built to fertilize new lands of Punjab, water should be stopped immediately and should be given their legitimate and legal share of water to the Sindh by the ruler class of Punjab. Sindh is the lower riparian of the Indus river system. to solve this problem, an impartial commission consisting of international water and environment experts should be formed.
