HYDERABAD, Jan 23: The Sindh Democratic Forum (SDF) -- a group of academics, intellectuals, technocrats and concerned citizens of Sindh -- has expressed concern over an offer made by International Financial Institutions (IFIs) to fund mega water projects, including large dams, in Pakistan.

In an open letter addressed to World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, Asian Development Bank president Haruhiko Kuroda, Dr Ahmad Mohammed Ali Al-Madani, president of the Islamic Development Bank; and Amadou Boubacar Cissé, vice president of the Islamic Development Bank, SDF president Abrar Kazi said that River Indus was facing a threat to its existence.

With antipathy against large dams and mega water projects, damage to riverine environment and the deltaic ecology including internationally recognised Ramser sites, lending to the Pakistan government $17 billion to build up five large dams was against the professed criteria and safeguard policies of IFIs that ensured protection of environment and interests of indigenous people and an no large-scale social and economic displacement, Mr Kazi argued.

He said the government was bent upon building a number of dams on the river and its tributaries to siphon-off the last trickle of water flowing in its bed,’ he said.

He said Sindh, the lowest riparian province, had suffered enormously on account of continuous cuts on Indus River system and the mainstay of its rural economy, agriculture, had suffered a decline of 32 per cent with consequent rise in poverty that had crossed 50 per cent mark.

He said the Indus delta mangroves — once the sixth largest mangrove forest in the world comprising 260,000 hectares — had shrunken to less than one third of its size.

He accused the upper riparian Punjab of stealing Sindh’s share of water and using subverting written agreements of water distribution and internationally accepted rules of water sharing.

He said the people of Sindh for several years had been agitating against the inequitable distribution of water and Kalabagh dam and even the official stand of the government of Sindh was that there was not enough water in the river system for another dam.

He said the walls of the Mangla Dam were being raised to store another three million acre feet water, almost equivalent to the quantity lost through accumulation of silt at two large dams of Pakistan, Mangla and Tarbela, hence arrangement for another dam did not make any sense.