About Water Apportionment Accord 1991

Agreement Type: national, sub-national, agreement

Included in Agreement

Riparians - Pakistan
Water Resources - Indus River

All Facts about Water Apportionment Accord 1991

Water Apportionment Accord of 1991

The Pakistan Water Apportionment Accord (WAA) of 1991 is essentially the legal instrument derived by the participating provinces to address the long-standing dispute over equitable distribution of Indus flows. The dispute over equitable flows from Indus remains an issues amongst the upper – the Punjab province – and the lower – Sindh province. The provinces have remained in conflict over reaching agreement on flow distribution since before the partition of Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947.

The WAA has been seen as a key achievement since it defines, unambiguously and in perpetuity, the shares of available water which can be used by each of the provinces.^[1] The WAA was based on the following parameters:

• Water entitlements were based on existing use of water that is actual average system uses for the period 1977 to 1982 where the ten daily uses would be adjusted pro-rata to correspond the indicated seasonal allocations of the different canal systems and would form the basis for sharing shortages and surpluses.

• An automatic process for adjusting entitlements depending on availability was specified where the ten daily uses would be adjusted pro-rata to correspond the indicated seasonal allocations of the different canal systems and would form the basis for sharing shortages and surpluses.

• Provinces were allowed to use their allocation in any way that they want where no restrictions would be placed on the provinces to undertake new projects within their agreed shares and the provinces will have the freedom within their allocations to modify system-wide and period-wise uses.

• The Accord implied that in major parts of the Indus Basin irrigation system there are, in fact, well-defined entitlements at all levels, from the international, through the interprovincial, down to canal commands, distributaries, outlets, and ultimately to each farmer on a water course.

Ambiguities of Water Apportionment Accord

The primary reason for the continuing distrust may be accrued to the interpretation of the WAA by the provinces. While the 1991 WAA provided a solid foundation for framing the disputes over Indus flows and equitable distribution of its waters, the practices of existing uses of water supplies to the provinces remained largely unchanged. Similarly, the adjustment of entitlements also prescribed that if a province is unable to make full use of its allocation, the surplus may be used by another province without acquiring a right to it. Additionally, the fact that the entitlements were explained as aggregates of specified historical uses in different canal commands meant that the Accord was thus implicitly specifying the distribution of the provincial shares to each of the existing canal commands, allocations which, in Punjab at least, are followed to this day. The role of IRSA was also contested due to perceived influence of Punjab province given its size in terms of population, economy and representation in governing and policy making institutions.

The WAA and IRSA have been seen as key steps to strive for reaching consensus amongst Sindh and Punjab over water distribution and planning for additional storage and water management infrastructures. However, to this date the distrust continues as the two provinces laying blames of water theft and usage in access to their allocations. As a result, no additional storage capacity has been added to the system since 1970s and the potential of hydropower generation as well as optimal flood management remain underachieved. Another complexity adding to the continuation of provincial distrust is embedded in the nature of WAA, which by design retains ambiguities that cannot anticipate future scenarios for instance in the face of climate variations and other externalities.