ISLAMABAD: The federal government on Wednesday called for national consensus to shift gears from water crisis management at present to ensuring water security in view of emerging challenges, particularly the “ weaponisation ” of water by India.
The proposed national consensus should cover building strategic water storage, including large reservoirs, medium dams, small dams, recharge dams, delay-action dams, hill torrent management, floodwater storage and urban rainwater harvesting, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal said at a round table session of the newly formed Water Security Task Force in the Planning Commission.
He said Pakistan’s water challenge could no longer be addressed in silos.
“It is not merely an irrigation issue, an agricultural issue, a provincial issue, an infrastructure issue or a climate issue; it is a national security issue,” he said, adding that India’s attempts to use water as an instrument of pressure had highlighted a serious external dimension to Pakistan’s water security.
In April 2025, India announced a unilateral suspension of its obligations under the Indus Water Treaty, which regulates the distribution of the Indus river system between India and Pakistan.
The minister said that the weaponisation of water posed a serious threat to Pakistan’s agriculture, food systems, livelihoods, hydropower potential, environmental flows and ecological stability.
Setting the stage for the upcoming budget in a month, the minister suggested institutional and financing reforms to align the federal Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) and provincial Annual Development Programme (ADPs) with water security priorities, mobilise climate finance and develop bankable projects for development partners and the private sector.
“Pakistan must treat water security with the same seriousness with which it treats energy security, food security and territorial security,” the minister said, adding that new reservoirs must not be viewed through the lens of old controversies.
“They must be viewed as national survival assets. Reservoirs are not against any province; water insecurity is against every province,” he said, adding that storage alone was not sufficient.
“Pakistan must launch a national water efficiency and conservation mission to modernise irrigation, reduce conveyance losses, improve water productivity and promote efficient use of water in agriculture, industry and cities,” he said.
The minister said that the mission should include canal modernisation, lining of critical watercourses, laser land levelling, drip and sprinkler irrigation where suitable, digital irrigation scheduling, climate-smart agriculture, wastewater recycling and transparent water accounting through modern telemetry.
Pakistan must adopt the principle of “more crop per drop and more value per drop”, the minister said, adding this required better seeds, water-efficient agriculture, crop zoning, higher-value and lower-water crops where appropriate, and aligning subsidies, support prices and policy incentives with national water realities.
Expressing concern over groundwater depletion, Iqbal said groundwater had become Pakistan’s silent lifeline, especially for agriculture and domestic use, but in many areas it was being extracted faster than it was being recharged. He called for a national groundwater governance framework based on aquifer mapping, recharge zones, extraction monitoring, regulation of high-stress areas, solar tubewell management and community-based groundwater conservation.
The planning minister emphasised that the future of water management lied in science, data and innovation, and Pakistan must adopt real-time telemetry, satellite-based water monitoring, AI-enabled irrigation forecasting, precision agriculture, smart metering, aquifer mapping, flood modelling, drought early warning systems and digital water accounting.
He said the time had come for Pakistan to move from water crisis management to water security planning as water security was central to national security, food security, energy security, climate resilience and economic growth.
He said that the national consensus, therefore, required new reservoirs, conservation, efficiency and technology-driven water governance by treating water security as a national priority and moving beyond fragmented, sectoral and politically contested approaches.
He said that in the 21st century, national security was no longer defined only by borders, defence capability or economic size. It was equally linked with food security, energy security, climate resilience, public health, agriculture and water security.
“Without water, there can be no agriculture. Without agriculture, there can be no food security. Without reliable water, there can be no industrial competitiveness, urban sustainability, rural prosperity or stable economic growth,” he said.
He reminded that Pakistan was once considered a water-abundant country, with per capita water availability exceeding 5,000 cubic meters per year at the time of independence. However, today it has declined to around the water-scarcity threshold of 1,000 cubic metres per person per year, making water security a present national emergency, he said.
The planning minister said rapid population growth, rising urban demand, groundwater depletion, pressure on glaciers, erratic rainfall patterns, floods and recurring droughts had intensified Pakistan’s water challenge. The devastating floods of 2022, which affected more than 33 million people, demonstrated that Pakistan faced not only water scarcity but also water mismanagement — too little water in some seasons and too much in others, he said.
He warned that Pakistan cannot afford to remain bogged down in unnecessary political controversies, institutional fragmentation or narrow provincial positions.
Water insecurity, he said, will not affect one province alone; it will affect the entire federation.
“Sindh needs protection from drought, floods and seawater intrusion; Punjab needs reliable irrigation for national food security; Balochistan needs water for human development, livestock, agriculture and drought resilience; while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan require hydrological safety, hydropower development and glacier-risk management,” he said.
The minister also called for a reliable national water information system covering river flows, canal withdrawals, groundwater levels, reservoir storage, irrigation demand, rainfall forecasts, flood risks, water quality and climate projections.
“We cannot manage what we do not measure. Technology can help Pakistan reduce losses, increase transparency, improve crop productivity, strengthen early warning systems and build trust among provinces and stakeholders,” he said.
