Indus River & a Divided Nation. History of Kala Bagh Dam

1. Water is a critical commodity and has acquired a political flavor. It has developed into an issue of domestic, regional and international conflict. With the growing population and increasing water demands in agricultural sector, water supply in pakistan is decreasing at a rapid pace. The country seems to be sprinting down the road to famines and food insecurity. No doubt much has been said and written on the Indus River, controversies over its water and water right been discussed and problems identified but how this controversy should be solved is still a question to the whole nation. 
2.  Pakistan is an agricultural country and its agriculture system depends mainly on Indus River system for irrigation. More than half of the country's inhabitants depend directly or indirectly on it for their water needs-a factor that has contributed to the continuing dispute over the control of the Indus water and the associated irrigation system particularly between the two provinces, Sindh and punjab.
   

1. However, this dispute over Indus is not new. It goes back even before the creation of  pakistan, to 1870s  when for the first time the conflict erupted over the construction of the irrigation infrastructure. But the major milestone was the British colonial rulers, who in 1945 imposed a solution giving the supreme rights of river to the sindh. Later, however, theses rights changed and Punjab was also given a share in 1960s. This was the result of nine years of negotiation process that led to the Indus Water Treaty of 1960, giving portion of water of the Indus River and its tributaries, located in punjab to India.
2.  The actual controversy on Indus River and its water rights mainly lies within Sindh and punjab. Sindh being the lower riparian defends its position as having the virtual rights to the water of Indus. But its case, mainly against Punjab, is more on conceptual basis of what Sindh thought it to be ''theft of water by punjab'' . It builds up its case by claiming that Indus River, by virtue of its name and historical water rights of the province, belongs exclusively to Sindh. Therefore, claiming the construction of dams, Tarbela and Mangla and later proposed Kala Bagh Dam (KBD) tantamount to heft particularly at the cost of the irrigation needs of  Sindh.              Rivers pakistan google