When it comes to water management, the policymakers are as worse as they are in financial discipline, industrial management and other economic sectors. Water is life but growing population and depletion of water resources are emerging as the biggest challenge not only for the economy of Pakistan but also for the economies in the rest of the world. Pakistan is an agricultural country but level of underground water has reached 1,700 m3, revealing a drastic fact that the country lies within the group of countries which are experiencing periodic water shortages. According to Falkenmark Indicator, a country is considered water scarce when its renewable water resources are between 1,000 m3 and 1700 m3. The per capital availability of water in Pakistan, having a population of 34 million at the time of independence, was 5,260 cubic meters (m3) which decreased to 1,032 m3 in seven decades. Now the population is increasing at one of the fasts rates in the world and the availability of water is declining at the same speed. According to a study of the Water and Power Authority, the per capita water availability will be 909m3 by 2020 and the situation will get even worse when it will decrease to 769m3 by 2050 in the country. The coming generations are prone to face the challenge of water scarcity when it will reach below 500m3.
If this situation goes on, one can imagine what will be fate of agriculture as well as of the economy in this country. The biggest challenge before the policymakers is not to increase water resources, but water management. The annual flow of water in Indus system is 140-145 million acre feet (MAF) with storage capacity of only 14.06 MAF and burden of storage lies only on three dams. The average storage capacity in the world is 40 percent with 20,000 MAF water availability and 8,000 dams. River Nile, which flows through Sudan and Egypt, has the storage capacity of 281 percent or 132MAF while Sutlej Bias Basin in India has the annual capacity of 35 percent. Pakistan has one of the worst water management systems in the world.
When water scarcity is haunting agriculture and energy sectors, the country allows average water flow of 30 MAF into the Arabian Sea against ecological needs of 20 MAF. According to experts, the economic cost of water is estimated at $2 billion per MAF, indicating that Pakistan wastes water worth $20 billion annually or 7 percent of its of GDP. On another note, India is building dams on the rivers, which were allocated for Pakistan under Indus Water Treaty. The government must take notice of water terrorism by India if it wants to improve economic and agriculture sectors.