Policy challenges: water, energy & demography

The Indus and the architecture of scarcity

Pakistan is the most water-stressed large country in South Asia. Per-capita annual water availability collapsed from roughly 5,260 cubic metres in 1951 to below 1,000 cubic metres by the early 2020s—the threshold the UN classifies as water scarcity (1,700 m³ is stress). The Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) warned in 2018 that the country could approach 'absolute scarcity' (500 m³) around 2025.

The legal spine of Pakistan's water is the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, brokered by the World Bank and signed by President Ayub Khan and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. It allocated the three eastern rivers (Ravi, Beas, Sutlej) to India and the three western rivers (Indus, Jhelum, Chenab) to Pakistan, with India retaining limited non-consumptive use upstream. Disputes over the Baglihar (resolved by a Neutral Expert in 2007) and Kishanganga (Permanent Court of Arbitration award, 2013) dams have recurred. In January 2023 India issued a formal notice seeking modification of the Treaty; following the April 2025 Pahalgam attack India announced it would hold the Treaty 'in abeyance,' a development of acute exam relevance.

Storage, distribution and provincial conflict

Pakistan's live storage capacity—chiefly Tarbela (1976) and Mangla (1967)—gives only about 30 days of carryover, against an international norm of 1,000+ days; siltation steadily erodes even that. Internally, water is apportioned under the Water Apportionment Accord of 1991, administered by the Indus River System Authority (IRSA). The Accord remains contested: Sindh routinely alleges Punjab over-draws, and the Kalabagh Dam has been politically dead since the 1990s because Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan assemblies passed resolutions against it. Diamer-Bhasha and Mohmand dams, financed partly through a Supreme Court fund launched by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar in 2018, advance slowly.

Groundwater over-abstraction in Punjab, salinity and waterlogging in the lower Indus, and the disappearance of flow to the Indus delta (driving seawater intrusion in Thatta and Badin) compound the surface-water crisis. The 2022 monsoon floods—submerging a third of the country and causing over USD 30 billion in losses per the Post-Disaster Needs Assessment—exposed how climate volatility now swings between drought and deluge. Pakistan, contributing under 1% of global emissions, ranks among the most climate-vulnerable states on the Global Climate Risk Index.

For the candidate, the operative facts are the two treaties (1960 international, 1991 internal), the arbitration precedents, the storage deficit, and the delta-salinity nexus—each a ready peg for an analytical answer that moves beyond description to policy prescription.

The energy crisis and circular debt

Pakistan's power sector is defined by circular debt—the unpaid chain of obligations running from distribution companies (DISCOs) to the Central Power Purchasing Agency, to generators (IPPs), to fuel suppliers. It crossed PKR 2.6 trillion by 2023, paralysing the sector. Its drivers are structural: line losses and theft exceeding 17%, under-recovery of bills, an over-reliance on imported furnace oil and LNG that exposes tariffs to the rupee's depreciation, and capacity payments owed to IPPs under guaranteed take-or-pay contracts dating from the 1994 and 2002 power policies.

Reform instruments include the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA, est. 1997), which sets tariffs, and IMF-mandated tariff rationalisation under successive Extended Fund Facility programmes—including the USD 7 billion arrangement approved in September 2024. Generation has shifted under CPEC, the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor launched in 2015, which added coal (Sahiwal, Port Qasim, Thar) and hydropower; the 969 MW Neelum–Jhelum (2018) and the long-delayed Diamer-Bhasha hydropower are flagship indigenous projects. The strategic vulnerability is import dependence: Pakistan has no commercial oil and limited gas, making energy a chronic drain on the current account.

Demography: the dividend that may become a deficit

The 2023 digital census counted Pakistan's population at 241.5 million, making it the world's fifth-most-populous state, with a growth rate near 2.55%—among the highest in Asia. The median age is roughly 20; about 64% of the population is under 30. A youth bulge of this scale is a potential demographic dividend—but only if matched by schooling and jobs. With over 22 million children out of school and a labour market absorbing far fewer than the 1.5–2 million new entrants annually, the dividend risks inverting into instability.

The census also reshaped politics: under Article 51 of the Constitution, National Assembly seats are apportioned by population, so the count drives the delimitation that conditioned the February 2024 general election. Urbanisation—Karachi and Lahore among the fastest-growing megacities—strains water, power and housing simultaneously, binding all three challenges together.

Why this matters for the exam

This is the analytical payload of the CSS Pakistan Affairs compulsory paper. Examiners no longer reward narrative history alone; the high-scoring questions in recent years ('Critically examine Pakistan's water security', 'Energy crisis: causes and remedies', 'Is the youth bulge an asset or a liability?') demand structural diagnosis plus policy prescription. Marshal exact figures—1,000 m³ per capita, PKR 2.6 trillion circular debt, 241.5 million population—and named instruments (Indus Waters Treaty 1960, 1991 Accord, NEPRA, Article 51). Always close with a costed, prioritised recommendation: storage, transmission reform, family-planning investment. That structure—data, cause, consequence, policy—is what separates a 50 from a 70.