Water situation in the country is becoming worse than it seems, our rivers are now drying and one of main reasons for this is a large number of dams built by India on rivers coming to Pakistan. But if I blame India for worsening water condition in Pakistan it will be very unfair and here is how. There are seasons when our rivers are full of water, all our big dams like Mangla, Tarbaila and other smaller ones are full of water, this is time to store all the water for bad times. But what happens is all the access water goes to the ocean due to less storage or in other words due to less dams are available.
Even our biggest dams Mangla and Tarbaila have been loosing their storage capacity due to being filled by dirt and the necessary cleaning was not performed on them. I can safely say that Mangla and Tarbaila which were built in 60s and 70s have lost their capacity by more than 50 percent.
The number one priority of Pakistani governments right now must be to build more and more water storage facilities. As in peak rainy seasons like monsoon we loose too much water which goes into ocean. Our minister for Water and Power recently claimed that Pakistan looses 90% of total water in its rives, which goes on to the Arabian Sea, due to lack of dams.
There are potential projects like Kalabagh Dam, which are very much feasible and can change the fate of whole nation. But they are facing delay for political reasons. Many feasibility studies around the Kalabagh Dam suggest that it is very much feasible and will be no harm to anyone, but only for reason that all provincial government were unable to come on consensus about Kalabagh dam being built, this project is not coming to life.
Water situation is worse than ever right now for Pakistan, in past it was real easy to get away without those dams, as India also had not built dams on some of rivers coming to Pakistan. But now they are building dams with good speed on all the rivers, means they will have more control over the water. They will only open water gates when water will be enough and will be more than their needs. And in current situation a very big chunk of that water will go on to Arabian Sea.
Also, with more dams, India can cause catastrophe like a flood, by opening the water gates of more than one dams, in times of tension between two countries. On same time if Pakistan have enough water reservoirs and dams available, that flood causing will not be so easy.
Finally, we need to plan many projects of water dams on emergency basis. Not only they will keep the necessary supply of water available all over the year, it will help Pakistan meet its energy needs by putting the power turbines on those dams. Also scenarios like the one discussed above, India causing artificial floods in Pakistan will not be possible or will be less likely. Above all we will be able to store some more of that 90% water that goes to waste every year in peak rainy season and later we feel the need the same. Even underground water level will improve with more water stored on surface.