THE month-long closure of Rohri canal — known as the mini-Indus — earlier than the scheduled time poses problems to Sindh’s farm sector, already mired in a slew of crises. Its closure causes unusual shortage of irrigation water.

Though the canal was opened on Jan 26, the closure is going to have negative implications for the wheat crop, which must be at the grain formation stage.

Water supply to the canal was stopped on the orders of the Sindh High Court (SHC) on a request of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). The court ordered the closure to allow the bureau to investigate alleged corruption by Sindh irrigation officials in the pilot project of Rohri canal lining.

The lining of canals makes irrigation systems more efficient, as it helps reduce seepage by adding a concrete layer to the edges.

The 350-kilometre-long Rohri canal — which irrigates around 2.6 million acres of agriculture land in nine districts — is considered a lifeline for the province’s agriculture sector on the left bank of Indus river. The canal’s lining is important as it irrigates farmlands that produce huge quantities of major crops like sugarcane, rice, cotton and wheat.

The canal’s lining pilot project was designed to overcome water shortage in the tail-end reaches, avoid wastage, overcome salinity and waterlogging, reclaim around 5,000 acres of land, and save 200 cusecs of water that is sufficient to irrigate 60,000 acres of land.

“An estimate shows that around 200 cusecs of water can be saved as a result of the project that was launched between RD-616 to RD-645. Its second phase was initiated from RD-646 to RD-680 to conserve another 200 cusecs of water. Each phase involved a cost of Rs3bn,” says special irrigation secretary Aslam Ansari.

He says the third phase of lining has also been approved at a cost of Rs6bn, and only after the completion of all three phases will the assessment of water conservation be available.

The Sukkur barrage usually remains closed from Jan 6 to Jan 20 every year for annual maintenance in the barrage and major canals.

The closure of canals like Rohri requires irrigation authorities to reduce barrage’s pond level gradually. It means that water flows in other canals are also affected.

From Dec 23 or 24, irrigation authorities started reducing pond level to stop flows for Rohri canal and by Dec 25 flows were completely closed, leaving growers whose lands are located in the canal’s command high and dry at a time when their wheat crop would still need one to two cycles of irrigation water.

Tail-end areas linked to Rohri canal’s Naseer division will, understandably, be the worst hit and bear the brunt of this shortage in lower Sindh where even drinking water for human consumption and livestock is said to be unavailable.

Water supply to the canal was stopped after the National Accountability Bureau sought Sindh High Court’s permission to investigate alleged corruption by irrigation officials in the lining of the canal

“Hand-pumps installed in villages can’t cater to water needs of community and livestock,” says Fayyaz Rashdi, a tail-end grower from Rohri canal’s last reaches situated in Khairpur Gamboh subdivision in Badin district. “We have zero cultivation of wheat crop in our areas because we are not getting water flows since November, much before unusual closure of Rohri canal in December,” he says, and adds that this is absolutely owing to internal mismanagement of water distribution by the irrigation department.

The NAB investigation into the lining work pertains to the verification of points whether concrete and other material in the canal’s abovementioned reaches is properly used and in line with desired specifications.

The investigators, says an official, are using ground-penetrating radar and core-cutting equipment from Peshawar University’s geology department whose cost is being borne by the contractor of the lining work, irrigation officials say.

The institutional lack of coordination between provincial and federal government departments seems to have made Sindh’s farm sector scapegoat.

Sindh Abadgar Board’s senior vice president Mahmood Nawaz Shah believes that the irrigation department remained unwilling to pursue the matter because it must have taken a few weeks before NAB ended up in court to seek canal’s closure.

Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, who also holds the irrigation portfolio, told the media that he would be claiming losses from NAB which are to be incurred by farmers whose lands are fed by Rohri canal due to is prolonged closure.

The Sindh government is, however, now getting additional flows of around 6,000 cusecs from the Indus River System Authority to offset the impact of shortage which was assessed at 36pc in Rabi season in the province.

Even after flows are normalised in the canal they would still take almost a fortnight to reach to the extreme tails of the Rohri canal system regulated by over a dozen regulators.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, February 5th, 2018