ABSTRACT

Soon after Partition in 1947, internal as well as external (with India) water issues started to emerge. In 1960, through the arbitration of the World Bank, the Indus Basin Treaty (IBT) was signed which allocated water rights on three eastern rivers to India and three western rivers (Indus, Jhelum and Chenab) to Pakistan. To compensate for the loss of the eastern rivers, Pakistan built two large dams (Mangla and Tarbela) and 12 link canals under the Indus Basin Project. Total water and power investments during the 1960s exceeded US $2.5 billion and accounted for more than 50 per cent of total public development spending. 1 Another notable investment took place with the support of the United States through Salinity Control and Reclamation Projects involving the use of public tube wells to lower the water table and solve the problem of waterlogging and salinity. This was an era of water supply enhancement.