SINDH’s coastal region, especially the Indus Delta, is faced with a major degradation threat. A major cause for gradual destruction of the Delta is the decreasing availability of fresh water from Indus River, which has badly hit the ecosystem of region.
According to government records, sea water intrusion has resulted in tidal encroachment over about 1.2 million acres of land amounting to no less than 33 per cent of the total land in the districts of Badin and Thatta.
The coastal communities face severe shortage of drinking water. Women face a lot of hardships as most of their time and energies are wasted in search of water. They purchase water cans at high prices. The water is s unhygienic and results in the outbreak of many diseases, especially diarrhoea.
Presently, millions of people living in the coastal regions of Karachi, Thatta, and Badin districts are living in miserable conditions with a host of problems including the growing poverty, reduction in incomes and lack of basic educational and health facilities.
The opportunity of sustainable development was missed by the state institutions and donor agencies, by ignoring the indigenous knowledge and partnership of local communities in the implementation of projects despite the failures in irrigation without drainage facility.
The poor are however, bearing the impacts of ill-designed projects like Tidal Link of Left Bank Outfall Drain [LBOD] that was built at a cost of Rs785 million and initiated through the expertise of the WB and the ADB-funded consultants.
In such a situation, the Asian Development Bank is to launch another mega project and the consultants have submitted their interim report of $50 million “Sindh Coastal and Inland Community Development Project” in the two coastal districts of Thatta and Badin.
A recent report of the World Bank says that $103 million will be spent on the development of socio-economic conditions and enhancement of inland coastal communities of Badin and Thatta districts.
The Sindh Coastal Development Authority on its own is dealing with both the Asian Development Bank and World Bank and the Planning and Development Department has given its full support to SCDA to bring socio-economic improvement in the poorest areas.
Given the importance, civil society activists, elected representatives, technocrats, researchers and community representatives belonging to Karachi, Thatta, Badin and Hyderabad identified serious flaws in the project document, “Sindh Coastal and Inland Community Development Project”, at a workshop organized jointly by the Participatory Development Initiative and Actionaid in January in Karachi.
Experts pointed out that almost all the major issues have been avoided or ignored in the project design. It also shows that the consultants had little knowledge about the coastal environment and their local counterparts have done their major work in the offices while avoiding field surveys.
This document fails to satisfy needs and demands of the rural community. There is also a strong perception among independent development experts belonging to diversified fields that the report contains inconsistencies. The core issues identified in the analysis have completely ignored the project design.
Experts also highlighted that fresh water, drainage and Ramsar sites have not been discussed at all while the inland fisheries, one of the key issues of the livelihood of the coastal communities has been completely ignored. It speaks only of restructuring of Fisheries Department while avoiding the main legal and policy issues.
Although the problem diagnosis section of the document discusses those issues, the project design section has completely ignored them. Land tenure, another complex issue has not been touched.
Dr Rajab Memon, a former vice chancellor of the Sindh Agriculture University Tando Jam said that governance has been the main culprit behind all the problems in the coastal areas. However, no action has been suggested for the improving the governance.
Dr Ejaz Ahmed, Deputy Director General WWF, Pakistan said that project has been prepared without the proper mechanism of reality check and there is no clear mechanism for the community participation in the project. He said that giving education the lowest priority is completely misplaced.
Dr Akash Ansari of Badin Rural Development Society said that the coastal region of Sindh is disaster-prone as more than 20 disasters have hit the region during last 16 years. The document completely failed to address this key issue also.
Sikander Brohi, Director PDI opined that ADB project has completely ignored the issues of continuing degradation of the fertile lands as a result of failure of LBOD project, growing seawater intrusion and drastic reduction in fisheries livelihoods as a result of reduction in Indus flows downstream Kotri Barrage but it suggests no remedy or policy for addressing these issues.
He said that the project has lightly discussed the issues of sea intrusion and biodiversity loss as a result of reduction in the Indus flows which is violation of the rights according to the Water Accord-1991.
A researcher and development expert from PILER, Ally Arcelan said that the reduction in the flows of Indus River downstream Kotri Barrage is the key issue of the coastal areas. However, the project describes it merely as a political issue.
Payments to the community for planting mangrove seedlings suggested in the project would prove counter productive in the absence of awareness and campaigns. It would set a trend of greed and those who are planting and protecting mangroves voluntarily would become disheartened.
Arcelan also said that there is a need for developing sustainable community-based coastal resource management plan.
Participants of the workshop were of the opinion that the policy issues are the basic hurdles in the development of the coastal areas and responsible for the over exploitation of the resources. Pakistan still lacks a comprehensive sustainable fisheries policy as well as a national coastal policy.
The project activities have not covered these areas. They further said that contract system in fishing is the key source of fisheries exploitation. The project is silent on such kind of exploitation. All participants agreed that the project should be further consulted in detail by the local communities, district governments and elected representatives before launching the project.
The participants through a resolution demanded that the Asian Development Bank, World Bank and other international lending agencies should accept the responsibility for deaths and disaster in Badin and Thatta districts as a result of wrong design of the Tidal Link of Left Bank Outfall Drain [LBOD] and announce compensation for the deaths of more than 300 communities, displacement of more than 5000 people and degradation of thousands of acres of land before launching any new mega project.
ADB and World Bank should rehabilitate the faulty Tidal Link of LBOD and affected communities, paying them compensation etc. As LBOD project has been completely failed, the loan of Rs31 billion of LBOD should be written off.
