Water for Balochistan Policy Briefingswaterinfo.net.pk/sites/default/files/knowledge/Policy Briefing - 3...country is now facing serious load shedding. Rural areas and tubewells are

Water for Balochistan Policy Briefings Volume (3), No. 8, 2007

TA-4560 (PAK) Project for “Supporting Implementation of IWRM Policy in Balochistan – Government of Balochistan - ADB and Royal Government of Netherlands

Growth of Agricultural Tubewells and State of Energy in Pakistan – Is Subsidy a Sustainable Option for Helping Farmers?

Dr. Shahid Ahmad

1. Background 1.1. Motivation Director of the Federal Water Management Cell called me to get some of the information regarding tubewell subsidy in Balochistan and possibility of introducing subsidy in other provinces. This information was needed for the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock for making any such decision in the future. Therefore, I thought to generate information regarding agricultural tubewells and current state of energy in Pakistan, which can help for making sustainable policy decisions at the national level. This was the major motivation in extending the experiences of the ADB TA Grant Project to the policy makers at the national level to make rationalized decision making for providing subsidy on electric tariff in Pakistan. What are the sustainable options for helping farmers in Pakistan is the target of this Policy Briefing through provision of information for the formulation of future policy reforms for subsidy on agricultural tubewells in Pakistan. 1.2. Major Issues of Irrigated Agriculture in Pakistan Contribution of Quantum of Canal and Groundwater in Irrigated Agriculture Water and energy are the two major issues currently faced by the irrigated agriculture in Pakistan. The water is now a limiting factor in agricultural productivity and production. In Punjab province, around 60% water available at the farm level is from groundwater (Figure 1), whereas at the national level it is around 46%. Thus groundwater contributes significantly for irrigated agriculture in Pakistan.

Tubewells from Canal induced Recharge (50%)

Canal Water directly (40%)

Tubewells from Natural Rechrge (10%)

Figure 1. Contribution of canal and groundwater in Punjab by Quantity in % of Total (Source: Pakistan Water Economy Running Dry. Pakistan Water Strategy. World Bank 2005)



Contribution of Canal and Groundwater by Value of Gross Production Canal water contributes in value term for only 25% to the total gross value production in the Indus basin, whereas the contribution of groundwater is around 75% from natural and canal induced recharge (Figure 2). The higher contribution of groundwater is due to the flexible availability of water as per crop water requirement. Farmers are normally meeting peak water requirement of crops from tubewells because of flexibility in operation as groundwater is being abstracted on demand basis. Groundwater is of vital importance in Pakistan’s irrigated agriculture, therefore an effective and sustainable strategy is needed for future development and management of groundwater. Rather management is going to be the key strategy as most of the freshwater resources have already been exploited and abstractions are now close to recharge in the basin. However, there are localized variations as some of the sub-basins are being mined and in others still some surplus water is available for development. Around 25% of the basin area having brackish groundwater is still facing problem of waterlogging.

Tubewells from Canal induced Recharge (62%)

Canal Water directly (25%)

Tubewells from Natural Rechrge (13%)

Figure 2. Contribution of canal and groundwater in % of gross value production (Source: Pakistan Water Economy Running Dry. Pakistan Water Strategy. World Bank 2005). Quality of Groundwater Quality of groundwater is now a serious issue in the Indus basin irrigated agriculture. Around 40% aquifer of the Indus basin is having fresh groundwater, whereas groundwater in 60% area of the basin is of marginal to brackish in quality. The groundwater in southern parts of NWFP and Punjab and major part of the Sindh province is largely of marginal to brackish in quality. Shortage of Power, Quality of Power Supply and Tariff of Electric Power The other major issue is related to energy. There is shortage of electric power and whole of the country is now facing serious load shedding. Rural areas and tubewells are suffering more than the urban areas. The accepted duration of load shedding by QESCO in rural areas of Balochistan is



around 8 hours. Farmers are of the opinion that it is much more than that. Further quality of power supply is also questionable due to voltage fluctuations, power breaks and overloading of power lines. Farmers’ prime movers are being damaged due to voltage fluctuations resulting in heavy cost of repair and maintenance. Farmers have adopted intervention of over-sizing the electric motors to adapt to the situation of voltage fluctuations. Their schedule of irrigation is also affected due to power failures and extended power breaks. In fact, farmers are victim of poor supply of electric power. 2. Growth of Tubewells in Pakistan and Impact on Groundwater During 2005-06, there were 9,57,916 tubewells in Pakistan (Figure 3). The trend line of tubewell population indicated that the growth of tubewells during the period of 1970-71 to 1988-89 followed an annual growth rate of 6.54%. After 1988-89, the average annual growth rate was 6.96%. However, during the last three years the growth rate was almost negligible primarily due to rising prices of energy and quality of groundwater. The country has already exploited its major fresh groundwater resources. Further growth may lead towards mining of groundwater in fresh groundwater zone or pumping of marginal to brackish quality waters having adverse effects on soil health. The mining of groundwater is now serious in Balochistan, parts of NWFP (Haripur, Khanpur, Malakand, etc.) and Punjab (Soan Valley, etc.). Lowering of water table is common around the urban centers due to increased domestic and industrial water demand.

y = 345.5x1.8068

R2 = 0.9457

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Figure 3. Tubewell population in Pakistan (Source: Provincial Agriculture Departments). Around 86% of tubewells are located in the province of Punjab and the rest 14% are located in the three provinces of Pakistan covering Sindh, NWFP and Balochistan.



3. Characterization of Tubewells There is a need to characterize tubewells based on geographical distribution, size and type of power, ownership, usage of tubewell, etc. 3.1. Tubewells by Size of Power The distribution of tubewells based on size of power indicated that majority of electric-operated tubewells are in the range of 10-20 hp. The diesel-operated tubewells are in the range of 16-20 hp, because the diesel engines are normally available in this range. There are more electric-operated tubewells in the range of greater than 25 hp from that of diesel-operate tubewells (Figure 4).

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Figure 4. Distribution of tubewells by size of power in horsepower (Source: Pakistan Agricultural Mechanization Census 2004). 3.2. Tubewells by Type of Power Population of diesel-operated tubewells in Pakistan was around 87% of the total population of tubewells during 2005-06, whereas this percentage was around 88% in the province of Punjab. Thus, there are around 13% tubewells being operated by electric-power in the country (Figure 5). The studies conducted in Balochistan under the ADB TA Grant Project indicated that cost of unit volume of water pumped by diesel-operated tubewells is higher than that of electric-operated tubewells (without subsidy). The prices of diesel-fuel are also increasing rapidly. The other concern is the efficiency of the diesel-operated pumping systems which is almost half of the electric-operated pumping systems.



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Figure 5. Distribution of electric- and diesel-operated tubewells at province and national level (Source: Pakistan Agricultural Mechanization Census 2004). 3.3. Tubewells by Ownership Around 95% tubewells in Pakistan are individually owned. Only 5% tubewells are jointly owned. In NWFP and Balochistan, jointly owned tubewells are 8% (Figure 6).

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Figure 6. Distribution of tubewells by ownership at provincial and national level (Source: Pakistan Agricultural Mechanization Census 2004).



3.4. Tubewells by Purpose of Installation In Punjab and Sindh provinces majority of tubewells are installed to supplement canal water supplies in the Indus basin. In the provinces of NWFP and Balochistan, majority of tubewells are installed to supplement rainwater or floodwater in Barani and Sailaba areas. In Balochistan, considerable number of tubewells is installed as replacement wells or Karezes, as Karezes and shallow wells were dried due to the installation of deep tubewells and persistent drought during the last 8 years (Figure 7).

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Supplementing Canal WaterIrrigation of Barani/SailabaReplacement of Wells/Karezes

Figure 7. Distribution of tubewells by purpose of installation (Source: Pakistan Agricultural Mechanization Census 2004). 3.5. Tubewell Usage The tubewell operation hours per annum are over 1000 in Punjab and Sindh provinces, whereas these are highest in the province of Balochistan (over 1500 hrs). The annual operation hours of tubewells are lowest in NWFP (Figure 8). 3.6. Renting of Tubewell Water The percent of tubewells renting water is highest in Punjab both by the electric- and diesel-operated tubewells followed by NWFP and Sindh. It is lowest in the province of Balochistan (Figure 9). In general, higher percent of electric-operated tubewells rent water to other farmers from that of the diesel-operated tubewells. This may be due to less cost of unit water pumped from electric-operated tubewells from that of the diesel-operated tubewells.



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Figure 8. Tubewell operation hours per annum at the province and national level (Source: Pakistan Agricultural Mechanization Census 2004).

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Figure 9. Tubewell renting hours per annum at the province and national level (Source: Pakistan Agricultural Mechanization Census 2004).



The renting time of tubewell operational hours per annum is highest in Punjab followed by Balochistan, Sindh and NWFP for the electric-operated tubewells. The renting time of tubewell operational hours for electric-operated tubewells are higher than the diesel-operated tubewells in all the four provinces (Figure 10). For the diesel-operated tubewells the renting hours for tubewell operation were highest in NWFP followed by Punjab and Sindh provinces. It was lowest in Balochistan (Figure 10). In summary, electric tubewell owners rent water for longer duration compared to diesel-operated tubewells.

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Figure 10. Tubewell average renting time in various provinces (Source: Pakistan Agricultural Mechanization Census 2004). 4. Groundwater Abstraction The groundwater abstraction during the period from 1947-48 to 1961-62 was negligible. It started growing during 1962-63 and growth was rapid due to higher growth of tubewells in the country. The higher growth in abstraction of groundwater continued until 1998-99 and then it was stagnant (Figure 11). One of the logical reasons is that the high discharge SCARP tubewells were transitioned during this period. The other reason was concerns related to quality of groundwater and higher tariff of electricity and rising prices of diesel fuel. The stagnancy in abstraction of groundwater continued during the last seven years which is also an indicator that major portion of available groundwater has already been exploited and even with the increase in number of tubewells the groundwater abstracted may not increase proportionally. This shows that there is an emergent need to start preparing groundwater management action plans for various basins and sub-basins because sign of groundwater mining are now evident at number of



places i.e. Pishin-Lora, Nari and Zoab river basins in Balochistan, Soan Valley sub-basin in Punjab and Haripur and Khanpur sub-basins in NWFP. The intrusion of brackish groundwater into freshwater zone in the Indus basin is also increasing due to indiscriminate exploitation of groundwater. The study conducted by WRRI-NARC indicated that during a period of 30 years (1967-1997), around 16% area of the fresh groundwater of the MONA sub-basin has shifted to marginal quality of water due to redistribution of salts and mixing of brackish groundwater with the freshwater. This is a serious concern because if the tubewells are continued to be installed without considering the depth of interface of fresh and groundwater zone, the intrusion of brackish groundwater into fresh groundwater is obvious. The ultimate alternate to deep wells is the skimming wells. The local companies in Sargodha and in other areas have already started providing services to the farmers for drilling of multi-bore wells. These skimming wells are now getting popular as farmers are now aware of the quality issues.

y = -5E-08x6 + 9E-06x5 - 0.0006x4 + 0.015x3 - 0.119x2 + 0.2176x + 0.7067R2 = 0.995

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Figure 11. Groundwater abstraction in Pakistan (Source: Water Section, Planning and Development Division, Government of Pakistan, 2006) 5. Consumption of Electricity in Agriculture During the last sixteen years (1990-2006), the net distribution of electricity to all the sectors increased from 28,769 GWH to 71,466 GWH. The growth rate was 5.85% per annum. The total increase during this period was 148%, which is a sizable increase in availability of electric power in the country. The use of electric power in agriculture sector increased from 5027 GWH to 7949 GWH during the last 16 years with annual growth rate of 2.9%, which is almost half of the growth in the power sector (Figure 12). Thus agriculture sector is a slow consumer of power in Pakistan. During the period of 1989-90, the percent share of agriculture sector in usage of power was around 17%, which has reduced to 11% during 2005-06. This was primarily due to increased availability of power as a whole. There is a clear indication that availability of power to the agriculture sector is an issue, as the rural power infrastructure is limited and farmer has to pay considerable amount for getting an electric connection. Thus only resource-rich farmers can have access to electric power.



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Figure 12. Consumption of electric power in agriculture at the national level (Source: Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources, 2006) 6. Electricity Rate for Agricultural Tubewells The comparison of electric tariff is difficult as the tariff is fixed based on number of parameters. There is a fixed charge of Rs./KW/month based on the size of the transformer. There are energy charges, FAS and additional surcharge based on usage of electricity in Rs./KWH. Therefore, prime mover and transformer have to be selected for the comparison of electric tariff in various provinces. One slab of tariff is fixed for Punjab and Sindh, whereas another slab of tariff is fixed for NWFP and Balochistan provinces. For the purpose of comparison, a transformer size of 25 KW and prime mover size of 20 hp (14.92 KW) was assumed with tubewell running time of 8 hours per day and effective duration of 25 days per month. The monthly electric tariff was computed based on these assumptions. The monthly tariff has been increasing until August 2003, when the monthly bill of electricity for 20 hp motor was around Rs. 11062 for Punjab and Sindh and Rs. 9737 for NWFP and Balochistan. Subsidy is not considered for Balochistan in these computations. The monthly electric bill for 20 hp motor was reduced to Rs. 10304 for Punjab and Sindh and Rs. 8066 for NWFP and Balochistan during July 2005 (Figure 13). It is important to note that in Balochistan, the prime mover size is more than 40 hp for majority of tubewells and pumping duration is almost double of rest of the country. 7. Fixed Sale Prices of Diesel Fuel The diesel prices are being continuously increasing in the country. In the past, lower prices were fixed for diesel compared to petrol. But in the last few years the increase in diesel fuel was also rapid. The increase of 22% in diesel fuel prices during 2005-06 is an indicator that farmers using diesel-operated tubewells are being affected adversely as the population of diesel-operated tubewells is around 87% of the total number of tubewells in the country (Figure 14).



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Figure 13. Monthly electricity bill of 20 hp motor for agricultural tubewell (Source: Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources, 2006)

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Figure 14. Price of High Speed Diesel during 2004-06 in Pakistan (Source: Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources, 2006)



8. Who will be benefited from the Subsidy? The analysis made in the preceding sections revealed the following findings:

Only 13% tubewells are being operated using electric power. Any subsidy given on electric tariff in Pakistan is going to benefit the fraction of tubewell farmers in the country.

Around 87% tubewell farmers are using diesel-operated pumping systems and the cost of pumped water is higher than the electric-operated tubewells. Thus the majority of tubewell farmers will not be benefited from the subsidy on electric tariff. Rather it will result in a discriminatory action against the majority of farmers.

Normally, the farmers owning electric-operated tubewells are relatively resource-rich farmers. A farmer has to invest around Rs. 250,000 to 300,000 to get an electric connection for tubewell with 25 or 50 KW transformer, whereas the total cost of diesel-operated tubewells in Punjab and Sindh provinces is much less than the cost of electric connection.

Groundwater resources are now under severe stress due to indiscriminate exploitation and use of the resource. Quality of groundwater is a serious challenge for maintaining the health of the Indus basin. The country has exploited the major part of the fresh groundwater resources and any further expansion of tubewells would have negative impacts on the resource. In reality, the groundwater has to be considered in the context of “trusteeship”, where discharge and recharge has to be balanced.

Groundwater is being mined in Balochistan and in some of the sub-basins of other provinces, which would create inter-generational issues. It is expected that in the over-drawn basins and sub-basins, the farmers are already facing problems because of profitability of the irrigated agriculture, except in Balochistan, where the subsidy on agricultural tubewells is now around Rs. 8.0 billion per annum for around 15,206 tubewells. The question is that whether we are going to deprive the future generations in having access to the economical level of abstracting the groundwater.

Energy is already limited in the country. The only management tool available with the Power Companies of WAPDA is the load shedding, which is getting severe day by day. During the last few years, farmers in most of the rural areas of Balochistan have faced load shedding of more than 8 hours per day.

Power Companies of WAPDA are already under heavy debt due to pending payments with the clients, theft of power, etc. Subsidy is going to further worsen the situation as these companies have the tendency to shift the urban thefts of power to the agricultural sector.

9. Sustainable Options for Helping Farmers Subsidy is not a sustainable option for helping farmers on longer-term basis, because it would result into wasteful use of water and energy. The example of Balochistan is evident, where diesel-operated tubewell farmers are more efficient in water use and productivity compared to electric-operated tubewell farmers. The ADB TA Grant study revealed that diesel-operated farmers are more efficient in the use of water and energy. The sustainable options are:

Improving and upgrading infrastructure of rural electrification would help to reduce voltage fluctuations, power failures and extended power breaks.

The efficiency of electric-operated pumping system can be increased from the current level of 40% to 72% by providing one-time support to farmers through provision of energy efficient pumping systems. This would also generate economic activity in the country where local industry would compete for manufacturing of energy efficient pumping systems and farmers would behave better in the use of water and energy.



Benefits can be extended to the majority of the farmers (87%) using diesel-operated tubewells where efficiency can be increased from the current level of 20% to 40%.

The above-mentioned two interventions can be included in the forthcoming mega project entitled “High Efficiency Irrigation Systems for Improving Water Productivity”, which is going to be implemented in all the provinces under the Prime Minister’s Programme.

The government can also regulate the services of the private sector in provision of inputs to the farmers at desired level of quality and price. Government can also facilitate the private sector to provide buy-back arrangement to the farmers to ensure reasonable sale price of the marketable products.

The introduction of sustainable options would require that groundwater must be considered as a resource for formulating and introducing the policy reforms, which result into sustainable abstraction of groundwater and efficient use of both water and energy resources, which are scarce in the country. This requires development of Pilots as “Success Stories” in water and energy sectors, which can be scaled-up under the mega projects.

The Policy Briefings is a Series of Issues, which will be prepared and circulated to the policy and decision makers in the province of Balochistan and in other provinces of the Country with an objective to synthesize and disseminate the studies outputs under the TA-4560 (PAK). The TA Project entitled “Supporting the Public Resource Management in Balochistan is being implemented by the ADB with the Department of Irrigation and Power, Government of Balochistan under the Balochistan Resource Management Programme. The funding is being provided by the Royal Government of Netherlands. The Policy Briefings are also based on the research work done by other national and international institutions with an objective to get benefit of the work done elsewhere. The comments and suggestions can be sent at the following address: Project Coordinator, TA 4560 (PAK), Arid Zone Research Centre, P.O.Box.63, Brewery Road, Quetta, Pakistan. Email: [email protected] Phone No. 0321-9561517/0300-9561517 Fax: 081-2853616 Website: http://brmp.gob.pk Reference: S. Ahmad. 2007. Growth of Agricultural Tubewells and State of Energy in Pakistan – Is Subsidy a Sustainable Option for Helping Farmers? Water for Balochistan. Policy Briefings. Vol. (3), No. (8), TA-4560 (PAK), Quetta, Balochistan, Pakistan.

The topic to be addressed in the next Issue of Policy Briefings is: “Mogha Command Management for Enhancing Water Productivity and Sustainability of Indus Basin Canals in Balochistan”. The topic include: a) background of the study; b) study findings; c) innovative interventions for Mogha command management; d) participatory scheme development process; e) institutional framework for PSDP; f) investment guidelines for Mogha command management projects; g) investment needed and possible donors; and h) policy issues and reforms.

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Water for Balochistan Policy Briefingswaterinfo.net.pk/sites/default/files/knowledge/Policy Briefing - 3...country is now facing serious load shedding. Rural areas and tubewells are