DROUGHT conditions become visible along the broken Hub dam road as we move closer to the Sindh-Balochistan border. Most of the wild plants have turned grey; the surrounding Khirthar hills are largely barren.

The only species green under the blazing sun is velayati keekar or devi (Prosopis juliflora). On the way, we glimpse a rare small green patch with a thatched house in the middle. We go towards the field lush with bitter melon, their yellow-green hues indicating that the crop is ready to be harvested.

“I have been living here with my family for the past five years. We grow seasonal vegetables with the well’s brackish water. The crop is just enough to meet my family’s needs,” says Bhagwandas, a farmer from Sukkur, who has been allowed by a landlord to live and work the land here. The area, he says, has been receiving scanty rains for quite a few years now. “People fetch drinking water from a nearby canal originating from the Hub dam,” he explains.

Manzoor Yameen, a Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) official, says the dam — hit by a prolonged drought — no longer supplies water to Karachi as its level has reached its lowest point of 276 feet.

“It was decided early last month to close the gate of the 24-kilometre-long channel bringing water to mainly the district west of Karachi. This helped reduce flow loss on the Balochistan side, which is still drawing water, though in very small quantities, with the help of pumping machines,” Yameen says, adding that water flows due to the force of gravity as the dam is constructed at an elevation.

At the dam, large parts of the riverbed are visible, looking like two small landmasses. Some boats are fishing in the dam, the third largest reservoir in the country, as well as a Ramsar site and a wildlife sanctuary.

Built on the River Hub, the dam has been managed by Wapda since 1981, while its beneficiaries are Sindh (53.3pc water share) and Balochistan (36.7pc).

According to KWSB officials, Karachi, which faces a 50pc shortage of water, is entirely dependent on the Indus source these days. The city’s western parts are being managed with the help of an off-shoot canal laid in 2006 to bring water in from the Indus source.

Some board officials believe that small dams constructed on the river’s tributaries are also responsible for the reduced water in the reservoir.

These concerns, however, are rejected by a Wapda official who argued that these dams, around 12 to 14 in number, half of them built with Balochistan government’s approval, were of insignificant size.

“Each has a storage capacity of 10 to 12 acre-feet while the Hub dam has a storage capacity of 687,000 acre-feet and its catchment area is spread over 3,000 square miles,” he explains. According to him, since its establishment, the dam has been hit by drought conditions five to six times. It was last filled to its optimum level in 2007. The respective shares of Sindh and Balochistan were finally cut to 40pc last November or December owing to falling water levels.

“Its catchment area starts from Kalat and Khuzdar, which have largely remained dry over the years, though Quetta and other northern parts of Balochistan have received heavy downpour recently,” he says.

Government data shows that if the dam is filled to its maximum level of 39 feet, it can supply 100 million gallons and 59 million gallons daily to Karachi and parts of Balochistan for two and a half years without interruption.

Man-made factors, sources say, have contributed to the impact of drought conditions. The dam and its canals, a small portion with Wapda and the larger ones with KWSB and Balochistan, haven’t seen any major repairs in 15 years. No data is available on dam seepage since the equipment installed to measure it has been clogged for a long time.

Some officials blame both provincial governments for this gap and claim that they don’t pay Wapda even 10pc of the amount required for repairs under an agreement.

“The board has been facing an acute shortage of funds. Canal losses are high and it loses a major portion of its water,” admits KWSB managing director Misbahuddin Farid, adding that the provincial government recently approved a project of Rs1.1 billion for the channel’s rehabilitation. Farid, however, believes that the delay of almost a decade in initiating K-4, conceived in 2007, was the major reason behind the city’s water woes.

“Though the provincial has agreed to supply 260MGD for the first phase, the total demand for the second and third phases of K-4 [Greater Karachi Bulk Water Supply Scheme] is 600MGD and the matter has to be addressed,” he explains.

Sources believe that the Balochistan government’s claim for a larger water share from the Hub dam on the grounds that the province contributes 71pc of the catchment area poses future risks to Karachi.

The issue was raised in a meeting of the Council of Common Interests held some three months ago. “Representatives of the Balochistan government were against supplies from the dam to Sindh,” a top KWSB official said. “The debate was temporarily put off, perhaps because of the Sindh chief minister’s intervention.”

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2016