\n\tISLAMABAD: As record monsoon floods batter Pakistan\u2019s Punjab province, officials are calling for urgent investment in dams and water infrastructure, arguing that India\u2019s stronger flood defenses have limited damage on its side while Pakistan reels from rising death tolls and mass displacement.<\/p>\n
\n\tThis week, swollen rivers in Pakistan\u2019s Punjab have submerged more than 1,600 villages, displaced over 1.1 million people and pushed nationwide fatalities since June, when the monsoon season began, past 820. The mass evacuations began after heavier-than-usual monsoon rains and the release of water from overflowing dams in India triggered flash floods in low-lying border regions in Pakistan.<\/p>\n
\n\tExperts say Pakistan\u2019s meager storage capacity leaves it acutely vulnerable to both floods and droughts, a risk compounded by climate change, which is making the monsoons more erratic and intense each year.<\/p>\n
\n\tBy contrast, India has invested far more heavily in dams and reservoirs, giving it a significantly larger buffer against floods and droughts, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal said on Thursday during a briefing to the prime minister in flood-hit Narowal district.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe must identify those gaps in our infrastructure,\u201d He said. \u201cIf you look at the River Ravi, India has made very strong spurs, embankments and dams on its side that they throw all the water at us as per their will.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tPM Shehbaz Sharif also called for urgent construction of reservoirs and dams as swollen rivers devastated the breadbasket province of Punjab.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe have to build the capacity for water storage. If there is storage, there will be a shortage of flash floods. Cascading will also be controlled,\u201d the premier said in televised comments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThis is the work that we must start today.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\tAccording to the Indian Central Water Commission, India has a live water storage capacity of about 257.8 billion cubic meters (BCM), or around 209 million acre-feet, enough to hold water for 124 days. Pakistan\u2019s total storage capacity is just 14 million acre-feet, which experts say is sufficient for only 30 days.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhile rains and floods have killed nearly 820 people in Pakistan since June, over 1,200 have died in India nationwide, which has a population over five times larger than Pakistan.<\/p>\n
\n\tIqbal said climate change was the \u201cnew normal\u201d but not unmanageable if systemic weaknesses were addressed, arguing that India suffered less damage from this season\u2019s floods while Pakistan was overwhelmed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tIndia, as the upstream country in the Indus Basin \u2014 a river system governed by a 1960 treaty between the two nations \u2014 can regulate flows to Pakistan through infrastructure such as the Ranjit Sagar (Thein) Dam on the Ravi, the Ferozepur Headworks barrage on the Sutlej, the Baglihar and Salal dams on the Chenab, and the Kishanganga Hydroelectric Project on the Jhelum.<\/p>\n
\n\tThese projects \u2014 located in Indian Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir \u2014 are used to store water, generate electricity, and control seasonal river flows, giving India leverage over the timing and volume of water entering Pakistan.<\/p>\n
\n\tBut experts note that India\u2019s water storage picture is not without its own challenges.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tDespite ranking third globally in the number of large dams built, India\u2019s combined live storage capacity is considered inadequate to fully meet its water security needs. Insufficient infrastructure limits its ability to hold back and store water under the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan, constraining both domestic use and strategic flexibility.<\/p>\n
\n\tIndeed, as Pakistan\u2019s Punjab reeled under a flood emergency, in neighboring Indian-administered Kashmir\u2019s Jammu region too, some of the heaviest rains in decades for the month of August have also wrought havoc, triggering flash floods and landslides.<\/p>\n
\n\tHomes have been submerged and roads and bridges damaged, forcing Indian authorities to evacuate thousands of people living in flooded areas. At least 115 people have been killed in Jammu and scores injured just in August.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn Pakistan, it is also the first time in 38 years that the Ravi, Sutlej and Chenab rivers have been in high flood simultaneously, forcing rescue workers to intensify operations across multiple districts, according to the provincial irrigation department.<\/p>\n
\n\tPOLITICAL AND FINANCIAL BURDENS<\/p>\n
\n\tExperts say Pakistan\u2019s weak infrastructure is less about technical capacity and more about political and financial constraints.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cPakistan has lagged behind India in building dams and water infrastructure largely due to fragmented governance, insufficient and inconsistent funding, political opposition and over-reliance on international financing,\u201d Ahmed Kamal, former chief engineering adviser and chairman of the Federal Flood Commission, told Arab News.<\/p>\n
\n\tHe said such factors undermined \u201ccohesive long-term planning and execution,\u201d with inter-provincial disputes stalling major projects.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tFor example, the long-proposed Kalabagh Dam on the Indus River has faced decades of opposition from Sindh province, where politicians and farmers fear it would give Punjab greater control over water flows and reduce supplies to downstream communities. The controversy has made Kalabagh one of Pakistan\u2019s most divisive infrastructure projects, effectively blocking progress on what engineers argue could have added badly needed storage capacity.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cAfter Mangla and Tarbela [dams], Pakistan paused dam building for 40 years before starting the Mohmand and Diamer-Bhasha projects,\u201d Kamal said.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Mangla Dam, built in the 1960s, and Tarbela, completed in the 1970s, remain Pakistan\u2019s largest reservoirs and hydroelectric projects, critical to irrigation and power generation. By contrast, Mohmand is a smaller dam now under construction in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while Diamer-Bhasha, planned in Gilgit-Baltistan, is a vast project envisioned as one of the world\u2019s tallest concrete dams but repeatedly delayed by financing and political disputes.<\/p>\n
\n\tMany experts suggest building smaller water-retention structures \u2014 such as check dams and delay-action dams, which slow down floodwaters to recharge groundwater \u2014 along with rainwater harvesting and conservation practices.<\/p>\n
\n\tA deeper challenge also lies in governance, with political instability and frequent leadership changes undermining consistent long-term planning.<\/p>\n
\n\tDr. Rashid Aftab, director at Islamabad\u2019s Riphah Institute of Public Policy, said India\u2019s relative political stability had allowed consistent long-term planning, while Pakistan\u2019s frequent leadership changes had produced short-term approaches.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOn one hand, they [India] naturally enjoy the advantage of being upstream in the Indus Basin, and on the other, they pursue policies with strong political will and greater fiscal space to invest in water infrastructure,\u201d Aftab said.<\/p>\n
\n\tBecause India sits upstream of Pakistan on the Indus river system, it can regulate water flows before they cross the border \u2014 an asymmetry that has shaped decades of tensions between the two countries.<\/p>\n
\n\tAftab noted that India had invested not only in large dams but also in groundwater recharge through rainwater harvesting and extensive canal networks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tPakistan, by contrast, has relied on external loans and has limited fiscal space to fund its own projects.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cCurrently, Pakistan\u2019s total water storage capacity is only around 14 million acre-feet, enough to last just 30 days,\u201d Aftab said, urging Islamabad to accelerate large dam construction while also expanding small and medium reservoirs, check dams, and water conservation projects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD: As record monsoon floods batter Pakistan\u2019s Punjab province, officials are calling for urgent investment in dams…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1638,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-100421","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-internet","9":"tag-technology","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}