Dr Mehboob Hassan Khan
BENEATH Punjab’s lush green fields, a reservoir is running dry—and nobody is counting the drops. For decades, the province’s subterranean aquifers have been the unsung lifeline of our agrarian economy.
Today, policy paralysis, technological change and institutional neglect are draining these hidden reserves at a breakneck pace, leaving behind a toxic legacy of salinity and scarcity. Pakistan is the world’s third-largest user of groundwater for irrigation, with 73% of its agricultural footprint relying directly or indirectly on it. Of the 68 billion cubic meters (bm3) extracted annually, Punjab alone accounts for 90% of the 60 bm3 pumped for irrigation. Put simply, we are extracting groundwater 142% faster than nature can replenish it. The latest data from the Water Resources Zone (WRZ) of the Punjab Irrigation Department (PID) paints a grim picture. Punjab’s groundwater table is falling by 0.5 to 1.0 meters annually. Pre- and post-monsoon piezometer readings show annual declines of 1.81ft in Pakpattan, 1.72ft in Okara and 1.52ft in Multan. In volumetric terms, Okara and Rahim Yar Khan alone lose about 4.15 and 4.08 million acre-feet (MAF) of groundwater each year. Overall, Punjab’s groundwater withdrawals have exceeded 53 MAF—almost matching the province’s entire allocated canal surface water share of 56 MAF.
How did we get here? The answer lies in a paradoxical twist of technology. In 1960, Punjab had a mere 4,500 tubewells; today, that number has exploded to over 1.5 million. Historically, the prohibitive cost of electricity and diesel acted as a natural, albeit unintended, regulator. Farmers only pumped water when absolutely necessary. The advent of solar panels, however, has upended this calculus. With the sun powering the pumps for free, extraction has become costless, leading to injudicious and ceaseless pumping. When water is free, it is treated as limitless. But the crisis extends beyond quantity; groundwater quality is also under siege. The specialized wings of the Water Resources Zone (WRZ) of the Punjab Irrigation Department (PID) play a vital role in monitoring this threat. The Surveyor Wing tracks groundwater levels and quality through circle-level surveys, while the Salinity Research Wing analyses the data to assess irrigation suitability and water-borne salinization. Together, they have identified a disturbing trend: unchecked pumping of “fit” irrigation water is disrupting aquifer dynamics, drawing up saline water and accelerating secondary salinization, thereby degrading fertile soils and threatening long-term agricultural productivity.
The Salinity Research Wing, through its salinity assessments and bioremediation efforts at PID research farms, has long warned about this water-soil relationship. The white, crusty salt encroaching on our fertile lands is the ghost of mismanaged water. Furthermore, contemporary research highlights a high risk of arsenic and heavy metal contamination in Punjab’s groundwater hotspots—carcinogenic and mutagenic threats that are already turning rural drinking water into a slow poison. Amidst this doom and gloom, the Water Resources Zone (WRZ) has emerged as a vital institutional anchor. It has completed a geo-referenced database, enumerating and geo-tagging every tubewell across Punjab—the digital foundation for future groundwater regulation. After all, you cannot manage what you cannot measure. Yet the bureaucratic and political response remains inadequate, relying on licensing tubewells and imposing extraction tariffs. Such price-based deterrents risk burdening farmers while encouraging rent-seeking and corruption. The challenge is not to punish pumping but to restore the balance between withdrawal and recharge. Tehran’s sinking plains offer a sobering warning; strategic recharge interventions, not coercion, are need of the hour.
To truly understand the gravity of this crisis, step into the worn-out shoes of Haji Shams Ul Haque Bohar, a smallholder farmer in the outskirts of Shujabad. A decade ago, Haji Shams Ul Haque Bohar would turn on his diesel tubewell with a heavy heart, calculating the spiraling fuel costs against the price of his wheat and mango orchard. He watered his fields only when the leaves began to wilt. Then came the solar panel salesman, promising free water from the sky. Haji Shams Ul Haque Bohar took a loan and installed a solar tubewell. The hum of the pump became a constant melody. He watered his fields liberally, even letting the water overflow onto the pathways. Why not? The sun didn’t send a bill. But last year, the music stopped. By mid-May, the pump started sputtering. The water table, which once sat at 30 feet, had plunged past 80. When the water finally did trickle up, it left a white, chalky residue on the soil that stunted his crop. The water was turning saline. Today, as the alarms from the Water Resources Zone’s piezometers ring in the corridors of power, Haji Shams Ul Haque Bohar stands in his field, staring at a dry, salty crust where his livelihood used to be. The sun still beats down on his solar panels, but there is nothing left underground to pump.
Pakistan routinely grapples with excess surface water during monsoons and floods. The Punjab Irrigation Department (PID) should repurpose abandoned canals and emergency escape channels into groundwater recharge ponds. Thousands of historic village ponds on government land, now encroached upon, must be reclaimed and converted into recharge structures. The government should also launch a dedicated Annual Development Programme to subsidize farm-level recharge wells that channel excess rainwater back into depleted aquifers while preventing waterlogging. We can no longer afford policy myopia. Without decisive political will to recharge and regulate groundwater, future generations will inherit a barren, dry and saline landscape.
—The writer, a PhD, is an officer in the Government of the Punjab.
