Primero: identifique el comportamiento o respuesta que hay que cambiar

The construction of the Upper Bari Doab Canal by the colonial administration (1859) marks the beginning of systematic canal irrigation on a large scale. This development, almost from the beginning, was accompanied by institutional arrangements to regulate water use. The first law of water management was the Canal and Drainage Act (VIII, 1873, CDA) which identified water management tasks like water pricing and canal operation and maintenance.584 It delegated the authority to maintain and operate canals to the provincial government. This act has served as a legal and institutional basis for future water regulation in the Indus Basin which initially meant the province of the Punjab in its pre-independence territorial shape. In a sense, it also preceded the Government of India Act (1919) which would establish the provincial autonomy over water management throughout the colony (Art. 130 – 135).585 Amended several times over the following decades, it continues to be valid

582 _{David Gilmartin: Scientific empire and imperial science: Colonialism and irrigation technology in the}

Indus Basin; Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 53, no. 4, 1994, p. 1129.

583 _{Wolfgang-Peter Zingel: Die Problematik regionaler Entwicklungsunterschiede in Entwicklungs-}

ländern: eine theoretische und empirische Analyse, dargestellt am Beispiel Pakistans unter Verwendung der Hauptkomponentenmethode (Problems of diverse regional development; in German); Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1979, p. 429 – 436; Klaus Dettmann: Agrarkolonisation im Rahmen von Bewässerungsprojekten am Beispiel des Fünfstromlandes (agrarian colonization through irrigation in the Punjab; in German); in: Hans-Jürgen Nitz, ed.: Landerschließung und Kulturlandschaftswandel an den Siedlungsgrenzen der Erde; Göttingen: Goltze, 1976, p. 182 – 183.

584 _{The Canal and Drainage Act is colloquially referred to as the Punjab Irrigation Act. Document texts}

of all colonial water laws are reproduced in: Mehdi Khan Chauhan, ed.: Complete manual of canal and drainage laws in Pakistan; Lahore: Khyber Law Publishers, 2002; available online from the Punjab Laws Database: www.punjablaws.gov.pk (May 2011).

585 _{Document text: Gazette of India Extraordinary: The Government of India Act 1935; Simla, 9 Sept.}

reflecting its relevance in terms of river management as well as in institutional terms.586

On the surface, the element of decentralization is important as it allows a degree of stakeholder participation, even down to the farm level (Art. 4a). In reality, however, the provincial government retained control, without much involvement in daily canal operations by the farmers or water users.587 The Act’s comprehensive regulations detail the provincial governments’ authority and responsibility to operate the canals and distribute water. In the post-independence era, the newly established (West Pakistan) Irrigation Department (1951) took over this task.588 Provisions toward the economic use of water include water charges and penalties for waste (Part V). A dispute over water allocations is to be addressed to sub-division canal officer who might settle disputes out of his own initiative, too (Art. 68). The CDA’s status as a general law means that its validity extends to all canals in Punjab except those specified in the Minor Canals Act (Punjab Act III, 1905).589

The CDA’s institutional and political status has gained further from similar laws like the Sindh Irrigation Act, passed six years after the CDA (VII, 1879), modelled on the CDA in terms of scope and responsibility.590 It also includes a dispute settlement mechanism roughly identical to the CDA’s. Balochistan has enacted a similar law for its own legal authority, again based on the CDA.591 Like its predecessors, it asserts the provincial government’s authority over all water sources, surface and underground. For the Khyber Province (KPP / NWFP) the CDA has been adopted in an amended form to cover the respective provincial canals.592

Mustafa identifies the Canal and Drainage Act as a piece of colonial legislation designed not only to increase irrigation output in the face of expected famines but also to provide additional state revenue and – most importantly – to serve as a political instrument designed for the creation and cultivation of new layers of local

elites, through the settlement policies that followed the development of the irrigation system.593 In what was a highly hierarchical system of power and patronage, the position of each farm within the canal area was essential when it came to water

586 _{Several amendments were made between 1952 and 2006; cf. Chauhan: Manual, op. cit. The scope}

of the CDA, through a series of specific amendments by provinces and states adjacent to Punjab, has been extended. Besides the provinces of Pakistan, it is also valid in parts of India, e.g. Uttar Pradesh; cf. Government of Uttar Pradesh, Irrigation Dept., http://upgov.up.nic.in/irrigation/irrig_manual.html (May 2004).

587 _{Waqar Jehangir & V. Horinkova: Institutional constraints to conjunctive water management in the}

Rechna Doab; IWMI Working Paper no. 50, 2002, p. 9. The lack of farmer organization has been documented on a wider scale by the Colorado State University in collaboration with WAPDA and USAID; cf.: Max K. Lowdermilk, David M. Freeman & Alan C. Early: Farm irrigation constraints and farmer’s responses: comprehensive field survey in Pakistan; Lahore: WAPDA, 1979, p. 176 – 186.

588 _{Before 1951 the administrative division in charge of irrigation was the Irrigation Branch of the}

Punjab Public Works Dept.; cf. Aloys Arthur Michel: The Indus waters. A study of the effects of partition; New Haven/London: Yale U.P., 1967, p. 247, 343.

589 _{See preamble.}

590 _{Document text in Chauhan: Manual, op. cit.}

591 _{Balochistan Canal and Drainage Ordinance (10 Dec. 1980). Document text in Chauhan, ibidem.} 592 _{Several amendments between 1969 and 1978 have extended the reach of the CDA to the Bannu}

District, with only minor procedural alterations, especially regarding the rank of the respective canal official in charge of settling disputes; document texts published on the official KPP Government website: www.khyberpakhtunkhwa.gov.pk (May 2011).

593 _{Daanish Mustafa: Colonial law, contemporary water issues in Pakistan; Political Geography, vol.}

supplies. As a result, water distribution was not so much – or at least not exclusively – determined by legal regulations but by political assessments.594 _The

role of the Irrigation Departments and its officials, according to Mustafa, has been and remains ambivalent: At present, as in colonial times, the administration of the system is an ongoing balancing act between the imperatives of acknowledging the privilege of the indigenous elite, which were and continue to be important allies of the colonial and post colonial state, and the engineering concerns with irrigation efficiency.595

From an institutional perspective, the Canal and Drainage Act’s resilience has been tested throughout Pakistan’s long and at times tumultuous history. The Irrigation Department, based on the CDA, remained in place until late 1955. The One-Unit rule, to last until 1970, during which the provinces as such were held in abeyance, brought a new central body, the West Pakistan Irrigation and Power Department (IPD, 1962) with responsibilities roughly equivalent to that of the former Irrigation Department.596

The Act has remained valid throughout this period, with only minor changes, and in the coming authoritarian and democratic periods.

The Canal and Drainage Act, defining irrigation water as a public good, has led to an all-encompassing administrative system that has in recent years received criticism because of institutional deficits: Instead of allowing market mechanisms to determine canal water use, public water management has expanded to a degree of over- regulation which has been blamed for inefficiency, inequitable allocation and unreliable supplies.597 Masood and his World Bank team of researchers point at the economic losses incurred due under-pricing of irrigation water and also at the adverse consequences of stagnating institutional development, in particular low productivity of water and the lack of economic incentives.598

In spite of these troublesome aspects of the CDA, the Act has survived largely unscathed over a long and dynamic period of time. This leads to the conclusion that – from both a water management and a political point of view – the challenges in the water sector seemed to have been unchanged, or at least the government’s perception of them. Another conclusion could be that the Act served post- independence water-related interests well.

In fact, the irrigation authorities that were established on the basis of the CDA, as Mustafa finds out, have over time changed by name and range of tasks, but their basic structure, functions and mandate remain the same.599

594 _{Ibidem, p. 823 – 824. These assessments classified people and tribes according to their political}

and economic usefulness for the British rulers, as shown by their loyalty and martial talents. This system formed part of a queer science of the empire; cf. Gilmartin, op. cit., p. 1130 – 1132.

595 _{Mustafa: Colonial law, op. cit., p. 824.}

596 _{Michel: The Indus waters, op. cit., p. 247, 343. The Soil Reclamation Board, established for the}

Punjab in 1952 and extended to all of West Pakistan in 1957, was formally a part of the Irrigation Dept., but gained increasing importance as it assumed control of groundwater management; ibidem, p. 344.

597 _{Masood Ahmad, R. Hunt, S. Bell, J. Hentschel et al.: Pakistan irrigation and drainage: issues and}

options; World Bank Report no. 11884-PAK, Washington, D.C.: WB, 1994, p. 2, 9 – 10.

598 _{Ibidem, p. 10.}

Given the dramatic expansion of the Indus irrigation system after 1947, it will have to be seen

- whether and how the changing irrigation system created new challenges to water managers,

- how such changes have been met with institutional responses, and

- how effective these responses were, i.e. how did these institutions perform.