Rural Development in Baluchistan: The Works Programme and Ground Water Supplies
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1968.tb00339.x |
| Author | A. K. Pickering |
| Date | 01 July 1968 |
| Published date | 01 July 1968 |
Rural Development in Baluchistan:
The
Works
Programme and Ground
Water
Supplies
By A. K.
PICKERING
Mr.
Pickering is Senior
Lecturer
at
the
Institute
of
Local
Government
Studies,
Birmingham
University.
Background,
Prospects,
Problems
SINCE July, 1963, interesting and significant progress has been made in the
Quetta Division of Pakistani in developing ground water for irrigation
purposes.
If
the contribution of the programme to Pakistan's national
development is only marginal its direct impact upon the economy of
Baluchistan itself is considerable, and its indirect results may be of even
greater consequence. The basic idea of the Quetta project is potentially
applicable to much of the whole region and in the long run, continuing
development of water resources may do more than arrest the current flow
of labour away from Baluchistan: it may attract immigration and investment
from densely populated and richer areas of the country. The programme
provides at least a partial solution to the centuries old problem of nomadism,
of the numerous and colourful wandering tribes of the area for whom the
national boundaries of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan are but a scant
regarded curiosity and whose cattle annually depredate Pakistan's slender
grazing resources.
The
concern of this paper, however, is less with the
actual or potential economic significance of the ground water development
programme than with the manner of its execution. Its purpose is to analyse
a feat of social engineering which, in even so historically unsettled and
poverty-stricken an area, is achieving notable success in bridging a great
gap in communication and confidence between government and people as a
result of which through the efforts
of
the people themselves the benefits of
modern technology are beingbrought to bear on oneof the most unfavourable
agricultural situations in the world.
For the background of the programme it is necessaryto turn briefly to
the topography and history of the area.
Baluchistan is one of the most barren places on earth.
It
consists of a
series of huge stony deserts with, for much of it, the highest evaporation
rate known where open surface water can lose six feet a year through
atmospheric loss alone. In such an area the struggle for water is the struggle
for life; its scarcity accounts for the low population density which in Kalat
division is nine, and in Quetta division twelve to the square mile, as compared
with nine hundred in the well-watered Punjab. In such an area poverty
breeds poverty.
The
money does not exist to invest in wellsor in Persian
wheels2and the camels to drive them: trees, wild plants and even roots
I
Quetta
and
Kalat administrative divisions compose
that
part
of
Baluchistan which
belongs to Pakistan:
the
region is
bounded
on
the
West by Persia, on
the
North
West
by Afghanistan, and on
the
South
by
the
Arabian
Sea.
2An animal driven rotating water wheel geared to operate avertical bucket chain
for lifting water from a well.
The
system is
of
great antiquity
dating
probably
from
the
Persian
Empire
of nearly
1000
B.C.
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