Open AccessEmerging Issues in the Implementation of Irrigation and Drainage Sector Reforms in Sindh, Pakistan
Author(s) -
Junaid Alam Memon,
Usman Mustafa
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
pakistan development review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.154
H-Index - 26
ISSN - 0030-9729
DOI - 10.30541/v51i4iipp.289-301
Subject(s) - irrigation , hydroelectricity , drainage , agriculture , water resource management , population , logging , agricultural economics , hectare , geography , business , environmental science , engineering , economics , forestry , ecology , biology , demography , archaeology , sociology , electrical engineering
Ever increasing demand for food, electricity and domesticwater use due to rapid growth in population has remained a key challengefor Pakistan since the 1950s. The country has invested heavily in waterengineering projects to establish the world’s largest gravity-drivenirrigation network on the Indus [Bandaragoda (2006); Bengali (2009)].Besides fulfilling a significant proportion of the country’s energydemand from hydro-power installations, the system irrigates about 14million hectares of farmlands and supports agriculture sector tocontribute about 21 percent of the GDP, 60 percent of the exports and 45percent of the labour force [Bhutta (2006); Pakistan (2012)]. Amidst itsdevelopment, the elaborated irrigation facility has left a deepfootprint on productivity and environment of the basin itself in theform of the rising levels of water-logging and salinity and thedegradation of deltaic ecology [Briscoe and Qamar (2009); Memon andThapa (2011)]. By the 1960s, every year about 40,000 hectares of fertilefarmlands were turning into wastelands because of water-logging andsalinity in the basin [Bhutta (2006); Mulk (2009); Qureshi, et al.(2008)]. Therefore, the country had no option but to develop a remedialdrainage network of thousands of kilometres of drains and numerous tubewells parallel to the existing irrigation infrastructure.