The Sindh government has expressed its unwillingness to allocate water with Islamabad/Rawalpindi from its share under the Water Accord 1991 partly because the province has already been facing acute shortage of water and lack of discharge of freshwater into sea has rendered barren hundreds of thousands of cultivated pieces of land in its coastal belt,
The issue of allocation of drinking water for the country’s capital and its sister city was raised in the recently held 26th meeting of the Council of Common Interests (CCI) in Islamabad on May 29, 2014.
This issue was discussed in detail in the 25th meeting of the CCI held on Feb 10, 2014.
The participants after deliberations had decided that the minister for finance would hold consultations with provincial chief ministers within 30 days “without re-referring the matter to the CCI”.
The finance minister stated that all the provinces except for Sindh had agreed to share the water need of Islamabad in accordance with the Water Accord formula.
