Bilawal Kamran
Water is life. For Pakistan, it is also becoming an increasingly precarious lifeline, stretched thin by climate change, institutional weakness, cross-border hostility, and decades of governance failure. A recent meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Water Resources brought many of these threads together in a single sitting, and what emerged was a picture of a country struggling to manage its most fundamental natural resource against formidable odds.
The meeting opened with a question that has been hanging over Pakistan’s strategic calculus since the Pahalgam incident sharpened regional tensions. Where does the Indus Waters Treaty stand? India, in a provocative and legally questionable move, wrote to Pakistan declaring the treaty in abeyance. Pakistan’s response has been firm and consistent: the treaty is fully operational, fully binding, and India’s unilateral declaration changes nothing in law. Secretary Ministry of Water Resources Syed Ali Murtaza told the committee that this position has been endorsed by the Hague-based Court of Arbitration, which has confirmed that the treaty remains effective and binding on India regardless of what New Delhi chooses to declare. This is an important legal anchor for Pakistan, and one that must be defended and communicated vigorously in every international forum available.
Yet the institutional scaffolding around this legal battle shows worrying gaps. There is currently no regular Indus Water Commissioner in position. The additional charge has been assigned to Additional Secretary Mehar Ali Shah, a stopgap arrangement that speaks to deeper problems of institutional continuity. The role of the Indus Water Commissioner is not ceremonial. It sits at the heart of Pakistan’s technical and legal engagement with a treaty that governs the water supply of hundreds of millions of people. Leaving such a post without permanent leadership during a period of active Indian hostility over water rights is a governance failure that deserves urgent attention.
The committee also pressed the secretary on allegations regarding the conduct of former Commissioner Jamaat Ali Shah, specifically concerning his handling of India’s hydroelectric projects in Indian-held Kashmir. The secretary stated that Shah had been exonerated following an inquiry and emphasised that no commissioner can issue any independent viewpoint without formal state approval. Whether one finds that explanation satisfying or not, the episode underscores how high the stakes are in this domain and how carefully Pakistan needs to manage its institutional responses.
Turning to domestic water infrastructure, the picture is one of slow progress, significant financing gaps, and structural complications. The Diamer-Bhasha Dam, one of the most consequential infrastructure projects in the country’s history, has reached only 30 percent completion. The World Bank and other international financial institutions have declined to finance the project, citing concerns over its location in Gilgit-Baltistan. China, despite its deep economic partnership with Pakistan, is also not funding it. The entire burden has fallen on the government’s Public Sector Development Programme, a budget line that is perpetually squeezed under fiscal austerity conditions. The Dasu Hydropower Project is at 21 percent completion. These are not statistics to be celebrated. They are reminders of how far Pakistan remains from the water and energy security it desperately needs.
The cost dynamics of existing hydropower, however, offer a genuinely encouraging counterpoint. Electricity from Tarbela is currently being generated at Rs 0.53 per unit, a figure that should silence arguments about the economic case for expanding hydel capacity. The problem is that the electricity market has not been deregulated, which the secretary acknowledged as a barrier to private sector participation and rational price determination. Hydel generation, he explained, is fundamentally a by-product of water regulation rather than energy demand planning, which creates misalignments with how the power sector thinks about supply and demand. Resolving these misalignments requires not just technical fixes but political will to push through electricity market reform against the resistance of entrenched interests.
The flood management dimension of the meeting was equally sobering. Punjab has removed 2,625 encroachments from river waterways, a positive development, but 83 obstructions still remain and the problem extends nationwide. The committee observed that climate change, particularly accelerated glacier melt in Pakistan’s northern mountains, has intensified flood events while simultaneously contributing to long-term water scarcity in the downstream plains. This is the cruel paradox Pakistan faces: too much water in the wrong place at the wrong time, and not enough where and when it is needed. Encroachments along natural waterways and floodplains directly amplify flood damage by obstructing flow and reducing the natural buffering capacity of river systems.
The committee raised serious concerns about unauthorized infrastructure development, including bridges reportedly built without approval from the Flood Planning Commission. The Chairman highlighted the specific vulnerability of Zameendara Bandh near cultivated areas and called for comprehensive provincial data on flood-prone zoning and a standardised definition of what constitutes high risk. These are not bureaucratic details. They are the foundations of evidence-based disaster preparedness. Without them, Pakistan will continue to respond to floods reactively rather than anticipating and mitigating damage before it occurs.
Monitoring infrastructure is slowly improving. WAPDA has 17 operational telemetry sites providing early warning data, and a proposal to install 707 telemetry stations nationwide with Asian Development Bank assistance is under consideration. Installation at 27 specific monitoring locations is expected by June 2026. SUPARCO is using satellite imagery to track encroachments. These are meaningful steps, but they need to move faster and reach wider.
Groundwater management emerged as another area of systemic concern. Low recharge rates, inadequate reservoir capacity, and excessive pumping, particularly in urban centres, are collectively undermining Pakistan’s long-term water security. The Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources reported that quarterly water quality monitoring is ongoing and that rainwater harvesting has been made mandatory for new housing societies in Islamabad. These are sensible measures, but they address symptoms rather than the deeper problem of water governance.
The committee chairman drew the meeting to a close with an observation that cut to the heart of the matter. Pakistan’s water crisis is not simply a resource problem. It is a governance problem. The water exists, or much of it does. What is missing is integrated planning, institutional capacity, strict enforcement of land-use regulations, and genuine federal-provincial coordination. Until those foundations are built, no dam, treaty, or telemetry system will be enough.
