Ruination of Indus Basin Irrigation System without its integral component of Drainage System destroying land fertility for the past 150 years

 Ruination of Indus Basin Irrigation System without its integral component of Drainage System destroying land fertility for the past 150 years

We cry for more water being scarce, but we never cared for the fertility of land under irrigated agriculture, and about the wasteful, incompatible and the obsolete Canal Irrigation System in the Indus basin that wastes 45 to 50 maf of water annually. We never cared to provide the missing surface and sub-surface tile drainages system to physically remove salts out of the area. We never cared that the flow of water in canals designed for regime stability (Non-silting non-scouring) no longer holds good because of the changed cropping pattern, the higher intensity of irrigation and changed Kharif Rabi ratio. The fixed agricultural factors in the originally conceived design have drastically under gone changes in the past 150 years. No one realized to modernize the wasteful, incompatible and obsolete canal irrigation system.

Moreover, constant and rigidly fixed flow in the canal no longer meets water requirements of changed cropping pattern, and higher intensity of irrigation as per crop consumptive use in time and in proper dozes. The crops need water as per crop consumptive use, in time, and in proper dozes. The canal irrigation system has become highly wasteful, wasting 50% inflow into it. The canal system has become incompatible in meeting crop water needs and has become obsolete. It therefore requires modernization to supply water as per crop consumptive use, as and when required, in proper doses.

 Moreover, the unscientific system of the supply of water on the basis of WARABANDI, that is the supply of water on the basis of land area irrespective of crop grown and its water needs has to be discorded. There is sky high difference between the use of water 150 years ago, and now, as irrigation practice has turned from art to science. Pakistan has the largest contiguous canal irrigation system in the world but is still without its integral component of Drainage System. More over, there is world of difference of water use in irrigation practice now and 150 years ago when Kharif Rabi ratio and intensity of irrigation was fixed. The entire concept of irrigated agriculture development, and agricultural pattern, has drastically under gone changes since for the past 150 years.

The consequences of incomplete irrigation system and the missing drainage system are:

Large scale salinity, sodicity and water logging of fertile land in the Indus basin

During the past 150 years, huge saline drainage effluent as groundwater has been accumulated due to the absence of Drainage System. The saline drainage effluent was meant for physical evacuation out of the area but is retained and re-used for irrigation in violation of the Canal and Drainage Act of 1887.

The re-use of drainage effluent by installing about one million small tube wells by the farmers, pump about 45 to 50 maf of the saline and saline-sodic drainage effluent into the land injecting 250 million tons of salts into the soil each year. This ruins the fertility of land turning the Indus basin as saline and saline-sodic waste gradually and invisibly.

It is my estimation that within the next 30 years, most of the lands under irrigation in the Indus basin will no longer remain fertile. Pakistan will mostly lose its food basket. Water will be of no use if our fertile lands are lost to salinity and sodicity and if we do not provide surface and sub-surface tile drainage, the missing link and the vital integral component of Canal Irrigation System.

On the land side, land is under deterioration by the obsolete Canal Irrigation System without drainage system, and on the other side, perennial water is diverted from Chinab, Jehlum and the Indus during the winter at critical time of sowing Rabi and early Kharif crops. This means irrigated agriculture is doomed in Pakistan as IWT is violated by India.     

WAPDA conceived wrong drainage projects of SCARPs and again of NDP to remove and control salinity by installing tube wells, a totally wrong concept to evacuate salinity out of the area and maintain salt and water balance at specific depth. This shows WAPDA did not know even the definitions of Drainage, Irrigation, Leaching and Water Management. (I can let you know of these definitions if requested).

WAPDA failed twice to conceive correct drainage system for the irrigation system in the Indus basin to evacuate and control salinity and sodicity. Tube Wells based drainage system on the other hand increased salinity as it is pumping drainage effluent as groundwater and is using it on lands as irrigation water, re-cycling the drainage effluent meant for physical evacuation out of the area.

The well known Indus Waters Treaty has become inefficacious because it has lost its basic 6.6 maf of storage water due to silting, meant for transfer through link canals to the area of which India diverted its inherent perennial water, thus depriving the area of East Punjab of Pakistan of its thousand years of inherent perennial water rights. The nature of storage water in the IWT is not perennial but is for a fixed time. Storage water cannot be equated to perennial flow. The death of reservoir starts the day it is built. It cannot be equated to perennial flow.

India has built 33 projects in occupied Kashmir, storing 10 maf of dead storage and about 30 maf of live storage on rivers allocated to Pakistan. India will not allow perennial water for Rabi and early Kharif crops. Moreover, India is planning to build 12 dams on Kabul River for Afghanistan. All this is silent water war by India against Pakistan and violation of the IWT.

Treaty or no Treaty, water supply to the East Punjab of Pakistan cannot be stopped as per International laws for lower reparians. Even in the present IWT, (the rights and obligations of each party under this Treaty shall remain unaffected …) (Artcle XI (3).

In case, India is not willing to build the replacement Dam for storage lost due to silting in Pakistan, then India is morally, legally and inherently bound to release irrigation water needed for the area deprived of its inherent water rights at the time of wrong partition of India in 1947 by the British. Pakistan needs water for the area  deprived of water from storage on the Indus either by creating replenishment storage in Pakistan, or release water from India into the Eastern canals of Pakistani Punjab as was available on 1947 and before. The inherent water rights cannot be denied by the change in boundary. Pakistan may take up this issue with India for settlement.

The Ministry of Water and Power Government of Pakistan is advised to carryout Water Management on scientific lines, so as to modernize irrigation system as per the definition of Water Management. See definitions of vital terms in my web site.