LAHORE, March 12: While the continuing haggling over an authentic interpretation of the Water Accord between Sindh and the Punjab — the principal claimants to the national water resources — threatens to shake the very basis of the present distribution system, evolving a new formula seems to have become a planners’ nightmare.

The Indus River System Authority — the federal body charged with distributing water under the accord — has proven a spectacular failure. By reopening settled issues, it has let the provinces bring down the accord brick-by-brick. It has let its meetings become a platform for parochial provincial battles. Instead of working as a federal body finding imaginative solutions, the Irsa has restricted itself to reporting the encounters.

It did the same last Thursday at the meeting aimed at evolving a consensus on a new formula. The provincial agents vented their anger at each other and stuck to their respective positions. A report will be sent to the president.

“The attitude has let things worsen,” says an Irsa employee. The body was created under the 1991 Water Accord but has let the provinces render the very accord useless. Asking a failed body like the Irsa to develop a new set of rules for distribution was naive at best and a recipe for disaster at worst, he said. Understandably, he said, no one had a clue now to how the current rules might be amended.

For its part, the Punjab, has chosen to stick to its interpretation of the accord. It maintains that the existing (historical) uses must be protected. It says a sharing scheme for only additional water supplies can be discussed. When it comes to sharing shortages, it says, every one should suffer equally. Sindh, however, refuses to buy the argument. It claims that the Accord entitled it to a certain amount of water which it must get. The other provinces, it says, must bear the brunt of shortages. The gridlock continues.

The situation is further complicated by the ever worsening supplies and reduction in reservoirs’ capacity. Even when both Tarbela and Mangla Dams get filled, which happens rarely, the country is left with a 22 per cent shortage.

This calls for a fresh assessment of water resource situation. Experts say that there are various principles that could form the basis of a new consensus. Water could be distributed according to the total area of a province, based on cropped area, population, efficiency of water use or present usage. Some rational basis must be agreed to. The present state of anger, they say, cannot be allowed to continue because it has stalled progress in the water sector for the last 25 years. Pakistan, they say, should not waste another day, leave alone months or years, before starting new water projects. The Kalabagh Dam, should the disagreement disappear, is no more going to be sufficient. The country must build storages to add at least 25 million acres feet to its present capacity. It must start work on Bhasha, Sanjwal-Akhori and Kalabagh Dams.

“If water is distributed according the land mass of the provinces, Balochistan would get the major share,” a water expert in Wapda’s water wing says. However, the province’s contribution to agriculture can hardly justify that. The Punjab will get the second largest share followed by the NWFP and Sindh.

If cropping area is made the criterion, the Punjab will get the biggest share followed by Sindh, the NWFP and Balochistan.

If productivity or efficiency of water use are taken as the yardstick, the Punjab would again get the biggest share. Sindh, the NWFP and Balochistan will follow in that order.

The Punjab would again lead should population be the criterion.

Protecting the existing uses means that whatever quantity is being consumed by a province should be considered a vested right and granted.

“Water rights belong to soil; they go with the land,” a farmer from southern Punjab says. “Distribution of water should be based on requirement of the land and nothing else. Water requirement of an entire district, province, even a country can now be measured. The government must carry out a detailed study to ascertain the requirements to develop a new system of sharing water.”