Social contract under strain

In Dera Ismail Khan, landholders own vast stretches of land that cannot be sown. In the Kachhi plains of Balochistan, communities sit atop wide expanses that remain parched despite decades of promises. In the heart of Punjab, farmers drill deeper, costlier tubewells to tap groundwater because canal deliveries fall short of expectations. Meanwhile, in the Indus Delta, fishing villages watch salinity creep inland, consuming the freshwater that once sustained them.

These are not isolated local grievances; they are the visible fractures of a federation. They reflect more than three decades of waiting for the full realisation of the 1991 Water Apportionment Accord, a federal social contract meant to stabilise interprovincial relations through predictable and equitable water governance. This is not merely a story of scarcity. It is a story of institutional credibility under strain.

On March 21, 1991, the signing of the Water Apportionment Accord was hailed as a pivotal breakthrough. It represented more than a technical arrangement; it was a political settlement aimed at resolving disputes that had lingered since before Partition. For the first time, all four provinces agreed on a shared framework to manage the Indus Basin, the lifeblood of the country’s agriculture and economy.

Punjab accepted a share of 55.94 MAF. Sindh was assured 48.76 MAF alongside recognition of downstream ecological needs. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan were promised the infrastructure, notably the Chashma Right Bank Canal lift and the Kachhi Canal, required to translate legal allocations into real water at the farm gate. The accord was premised not on a shrinking system but on expansion through new storage, coordinated operations, and improved governance.

Thirty-five years later, that optimism has given way to an implementation deficit that is as political as it is hydrological. The Accord envisioned annual allocations of 117.35 MAF, yet system-wide deliveries have remained structurally below the planning assumptions on which the agreement was built.

The failure is two-fold. The first is a storage deficit. The 1991 framework assumed new reservoirs would capture monsoon surpluses for use in the dry Rabi season. Instead, sedimentation has reduced the effective capacity of Tarbela, Mangla and Chashma. Today, Pakistan retains roughly 30 days of mean annual flow, a stark vulnerability compared to highly regulated river basins that maintain far larger strategic reserves despite vastly different climatic contexts.

The second is an infrastructure breach. For KP and Balochistan, the gap reflects an unfinished federal commitment. Their withdrawals remain far below their allocated shares, averaging roughly 23.6 per cent for KP and 68.3 per cent for Balochistan, not because of a lack of entitlement, but because the promised canals remain incomplete. Under the accord’s operating framework, provinces indent based on infrastructure capacity; when canals are not built, water remains in the system as a paper entitlement rather than a lived reality for farmers in DI Khan or the Kachhi plains.

The more serious threat to federal cohesion is not simply less water, but also contested data. Analysis suggests that approximately 21.80 MAF, around 16 per cent of total system inflows, remains difficult to reconcile between rim-station inflows and canal withdrawal records. Whether arising from measurement gaps, routing losses, ungauged flows or accounting inconsistencies, the absence of trusted reconciliation erodes confidence in the system itself. When such a significant portion of the basin cannot be transparently verified, every new project becomes a zero-sum political dispute. Technical questions are quickly transformed into provincial narratives of loss and suspicion. Without independent, real-time telemetry and shared data platforms, governance risks becoming a contest of assertions rather than evidence.

The consequences of this governance gap are visible across the basin. Because flows cannot be effectively regulated, roughly 94 per cent of water passing Kotri Barrage occurs during the Kharif season, while Rabi flows are often minimal. This imbalance accelerates ecological degradation in the Indus Delta, where seawater intrusion continues to reshape landscapes and livelihoods.

At the same time, inefficiencies within the irrigation system magnify scarcity. Of roughly 95 MAF diverted into canals, a significant portion is lost to seepage and outdated distribution practices. The federation debates allocation at the headworks while enormous volumes disappear before reaching the farm gate.

Rebuilding federal legitimacy requires a strategic shift in sequencing. Infrastructure remains essential, but governance must come first. Completion of the telemetry initiative should become a national priority because transparent, real-time data is the governance infrastructure upon which future consensus depends. Recovering existing losses offers faster gains than building new storage alone; even a modest reduction in conveyance losses could reclaim several MAF without waiting decades for mega-projects.

Completion of the CRBC lift and the Kachhi Canal should be treated not as discretionary development but as overdue federal commitments, demonstrating that the state’s word still carries weight. At the same time, the recurring dispute over operating rules and the ‘three-tier’ formula requires formal codification through a consensus-based shortage-sharing schedule, replacing ad-hoc seasonal negotiations with predictable governance.

The Indus Basin is more than an irrigation system; it is the foundation of Pakistan’s federal compact. The 1991 Accord remains a landmark achievement, but its promise has yet to be fully realised. Climate variability is accelerating and the margin for institutional failure is shrinking. The path forward lies in moving from a scarcity narrative to a governance narrative, one that values transparency as much as engineering and equity as much as infrastructure.

The federation cannot secure its water future through concrete alone. Trust must be rebuilt through credible data, fulfilled commitments and a system that treats every province not as a rival claimant, but as a partner in a shared river.

The writer is a former Punjab minister for irrigation and finance, with extensive experience in Pakistan’s provincial and federal legislatures.