GOOD sense seems to have finally prevailed, with the federal government deferring the planned canal projects, including the controversial Cholistan canal, for now.

Following a meeting between Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and PPP leader Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Thursday, the government said it will undertake the projects only if a consensus among the provinces is achieved. A meeting of the Council of Common Interests will be convened next week regarding the issue. “…[W]e unanimously decided that no new canal will be constructed till the decision of the CCI,” Mr Sharif told a joint press conference along with Mr Bhutto-Zardari.

Given the sensitivities of interprovincial water distribution, a wiser political leadership would have pre-empted the public outcry over the canal projects by taking the contentious Cholistan scheme to the CCI for a consensus decision even before initiating the work on its feasibility. That it took months of protests across Sindh against the Cholistan canal, the complete blockade of industrial and other supply chains to and from Punjab for the last week and a half, and the PPP’s ‘threats’ of quitting the coalition before the government took a step back shows that the actual decision-making powers regarding the project lie somewhere else.

That the matter has been referred to the CCI, the highest constitutional forum empowered to decide disputes that involve the provinces, indicates that the doors to an arbitrary decision on the scheme may have been closed. So far so good. But the pause does not necessarily guarantee that the project has been cancelled altogether. Still, the canal plan is unlikely to move forward anytime soon, at least not unless a solid, independent technical study of the proposed water channel is carried out and the buy-in of all the provinces, especially Sindh, achieved.

This development should be enough to reassure the protesters who should lift the blockade of the national highway to allow smooth cargo and passenger movement between Sindh and Punjab. No doubt the episode has left a bad taste in the mouth and had added to the federation’s strain. However, the PM’s word on the issue should be respected. One also hopes that the PML-N will do better and avoid such controversies in the future.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2025