Suchergebnisse

Fareeha Zafar's book Canals, Colonies and Class: British
Policy in the Punjab 1880-1940 is essentially an edited reproduction of
her PhD thesis, The Impact of Canal Construction on the Rural Structures
of the Punjab: The Canal Colony Districts, 1880 To 1940. The thesis was
completed about 35 years ago at the School of Oriental and African
Studies, the University of London (now SOAS, the University of London).
She studies the British colonisation process in the Punjab and its
effect on the local environment, the production patterns, and social
relations, understanding that despite several similar studies on the
region, no serious effort had been made to synthesise these issues the
way she does in this book. However, in the form of a new book, the
synthesis does not add much value as it reiterates the British
colonisers' well-known strategies, namely irrigation development as a
tool to settle disarmed forces and nomads and, thereby, strengthening a
class of local landed elite to maintain their power in the colonies,
their revenue-seeking policies, indebtedness of the landed class and
alike. Nevertheless, considering the timing of the original
contribution, the book, if read together with the contributions such as
Khuhro (1978/1999) and Cheesman (1997), provides a relatively rich
description of geographers' analyses of the British policies, their
intentions, and their effects.

Ever increasing demand for food, electricity and domestic
water use due to rapid growth in population has remained a key challenge
for Pakistan since the 1950s. The country has invested heavily in water
engineering projects to establish the world's largest gravity-driven
irrigation network on the Indus [Bandaragoda (2006); Bengali (2009)].
Besides fulfilling a significant proportion of the country's energy
demand from hydro-power installations, the system irrigates about 14
million hectares of farmlands and supports agriculture sector to
contribute about 21 percent of the GDP, 60 percent of the exports and 45
percent of the labour force [Bhutta (2006); Pakistan (2012)]. Amidst its
development, the elaborated irrigation facility has left a deep
footprint on productivity and environment of the basin itself in the
form of the rising levels of water-logging and salinity and the
degradation of deltaic ecology [Briscoe and Qamar (2009); Memon and
Thapa (2011)]. By the 1960s, every year about 40,000 hectares of fertile
farmlands were turning into wastelands because of water-logging and
salinity in the basin [Bhutta (2006); Mulk (2009); Qureshi, et al.
(2008)]. Therefore, the country had no option but to develop a remedial
drainage network of thousands of kilometres of drains and numerous tube
wells parallel to the existing irrigation infrastructure.

Governments in developing countries face financial constraints to ensure supply of clean drinking water. They may benefit from increasing water charges for those who are be willing to pay little extra in lieu of their demand for improvement in water quality and service. To check the plausibility of this proposal, we investigated drinking water supply and quality, and welloff consumers demand for improved service delivery in Shah-Rukun-e-alam and Mumtazabad towns in Multan city of Pakistan. Qualitative data obtained through a questionnaire survey was analyzed using descriptive and regression techniques. Qualitative information obtained through semi structured interviews was helpful in designing survey questionnaire and to elaborate quantitative results. Results reveal that the respondents accord high importance to the provision of safe drinking water than to other daily household needs. The demand for improvement in water supply parameters exceeds the demand for improvements in water quality parameters, with the reliable supply being the most demanded improvement. Majority realize the government's budget constraints in improving service delivery. Most respondents would pay PKR 100 in addition to what they are paying now. Their willingness to pay (WTP) this amount correlates with their awareness on water and health nexus, and depends household income, number of children under 14 years age and awareness of actual water quality tested through laboratory. Besides recommending raise of water charges by PKR 100 per month per household in both towns, the service quality improvement may consider interventions such as mobile water testing laboratory and awareness campaigns motivate citizens to pay for safe drinking water.