ISLAMABAD: The Council of Common Interests (CCI) on Tuesday turned into a centre of complaints and clarifications on a set of centre-provincial matters, as it failed to approve the country`s first national water policy that has been on the CCI agenda for almost a year.

The CCI meeting, which was presided over by Prime Minister Shahid Khagan Abbasi, however, upheld its previous decision to have revalidation of census results of five per cent blocks through an independent and third party consult-ant notwithstanding the fast-approaching general elections.

The meeting was attended by the chief ministers of all the provinces except Punjab. Instead of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, provincial finance minister Dr Ayesha Ghous Pasha attended the meeting.

While matters pertaining to net hydel profit, water projects and funding for flood protection programmes came under detailed discussion, the meeting ended without any agreement on the National Water Policy (NWP).

A participant told Dawn after the meeting that the draft NWP consumed major part of the deliberations, as the Sindh government raised a series of objections and amendments to the draft policy which were responded to by the federal secretary for water resources point by point.

However, Punjab expressed its inability to make substantive contribution,citing that the final draft had been circulated at a short notice and sought more time to study the policy and get back with feedback.

All the participants, however, had a general consensus on the need to adopt the NWP with an initial target of increasing storage capacity from existing 14 million acre feet (MAF) by immediately starting the construction of 6.4MAF Diamer-Bhasha Dam which had already been cleared by the CCI back in 2009.

Giving a briefing about the draft NWP, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Sartaj Aziz said Pakistan was rapidly becoming a water-scarce country and obligations towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) required adoption of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM). He said population growth and water demands for various sectors of the economy necessitated urgent measures to enhance storage capacity.He said the policy empowered the provinces to develop their master plans within a national framework for sustainable development and management of water resources. `The water resource is a national responsibility but irrigation and agriculture, as well as rural and urban water supply, environment and other water related sub-sectors are provincial subjects.

Sindh sought to insert in the policy the internationally accepted principles of lower riparian rights and wanted guarantee that `any diversions/interruptions of water flow should not adversely affect the lower riparian and shall only be allowed after the explicit consent of the lower riparian.` It also wanted to protect adequate release downstream Kotri for ecology, agua life and sea intrusion but the language was contested by the water resources secretary.

Sindh also wanted the policy to explicitly state that storages be builtwhere feasible but only after `consensus of all stakeholders including provinces`. The province opposed powers of the national water council comprising the federal and provincial ministers to have the authority to `oversee all major water-related projects and activities in the field of irrigation, drainage, flood control & hydro power` The meeting was told that draft NWP includes strategic initiatives and was in line with the National Climate Change Policy, 2012.

The chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa protested over short payment on account of net hydel profit share even though the issue was not on the agenda. A federal secretary explained that about Rs149 billion or so had been already paid to Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but Wapda itself had to recover some outstanding dues from key stakeholders. He added that funds were beingarrangedtoclearthe backlog.