The province’s debate has spent weeks counting seats and constituencies. It has hardly begun to count something much more important: water.
Provincial borders are political facts. The Indus basin is a physical fact. The river and its tributaries ignore provincial and district lines; an irrigation system fed by common headworks and canals serves the region, while a delta remains under pressure. The river does not stop at a district boundary simply because a constitutional amendment changes the map.
In May, Sindh reported a shortage of 42pc at Guddu and 29pc at Kotri, while protesting against the operation of the Chashma-Jhelum and Taunsa-Panjnad link canals. In June, it demanded that downstream water releases from Chashma be restored according to its indent and called for the CJ and TP link canals to be halted. These were Sindh’s reported positions in the wider dispute over the 1991 Water Apportionment Accord. But that is exactly the point: when water is scarce, even the existing four-party agreement becomes a matter of politics.
Reviews of the 1991 Accord have identified ambiguities in its aims and shortage provisions. Punjab and Sindh have long had different interpretations of some of its most important shortage clauses. The treatment of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan during shortages has also been disputed. More than three decades later, parts of that settlement remain contested.
Now imagine three or four more stakeholders — a province such as South Punjab or Bahawalpur. It would fall within a canal system managed as part of a larger whole, where headworks exist upstream and users downstream depend on the same water. These are not problems a new line on a map can solve.
Punjab’s water allocation would need to be divided among successor provinces on some formula that holds during a year of shortage rather than only in a normal one. A newly created province would presumably want its own seat at IRSA — a seat that does not exist today, and one whose creation would unsettle the balance among the four that do.
The problem extends beyond water. Under Article 161, certain revenues from natural gas and hydroelectric power are tied to the province where the relevant resource or facility is located. Changes to the provincial map may therefore affect revenue flows and reopen old questions over mineral wealth and jointly held assets. The new governments may not even be able to afford to survive.
Under the 7th NFC Award, the provinces’ share of the divisible pool is 57.5pc. Article 160(3A) provides that the provincial share in an NFC Award cannot be less than the share allocated to the provinces in the previous Award. If there are more provinces, one must therefore ask: should existing resources be divided among more governments, or should additional money be found?
More provinces will mean more assemblies, departments, secretariats, police structures and institutions that need funding. Someone will have to pay for them. That is why the order of the present discussion is wrong.
First the proposal is made, then the map is drawn. Only afterward do questions about resources arise, expected to be settled by some future commission rather than before.
Reverse the process. Before the legislature is called upon to approve a new province, its advocates should put forward a plan for the sharing of resources and institutions. How will the water allocation be shared? What formula will apply in a shortage year? How will representation in IRSA be arranged? Who will manage the canals and headworks and inherit their upkeep costs? How will gas and hydel power revenues be shared? How will mineral rights and jointly owned assets be divided? How will provincial debt be divided? How will the NFC formula accommodate the new provinces? And how will the new institutions be financed?
Provinces should not be created first and then be made to negotiate the terms of their survival later. Pakistan is not distributing an expanding pool of resources. It is allocating political jurisdiction over a water system under increasing pressure. Every additional stakeholder alters the dynamics of scarcity.
This does not mean that Pakistan should never have another province. Smaller units can administer remote districts more efficiently, manage irrigation systems more effectively, and bring government closer to long-ignored communities. The argument for South Punjab, Bahawalpur and other proposed provinces deserves to be made. But it must be made with numbers, not at a press conference.
Before asking where the boundary goes, those proposing a new province should show how it will live within the resource settlement that already exists — not as an afterthought for some future commission, but as the price of admission to the debate itself. Pakistan can redraw its provinces. It cannot redraw the Indus. The rivers were here before the provinces and will outlast whatever boundaries are drawn next. Whoever wants a new map should be made to answer for the water first.
Mohamin Zeeshan is an independent analyst and writer.
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