SUKKUR: Water level in the Indus at all three barrages — Guddu, Sukkur and Kotri — has been improving steadily due to melting of snow on mountains in the upper areas of the country and it is anticipated that in the coming days canals may be receiving flows sufficient enough to feed even the tail-end areas in the province.

This was stated by Sukkur Barrage control room in-charge Haji Abdul Aziz Soomro at a meeting here on Tuesday.

He pointed out that the entire country had remained in the grip of extremely hot weather conditions which caused melting of snow on a big scale and ultimate heavy flows into the Indus.

“A 20 per cent increase in the flows at the three barrages over Indus has been registered over past few weeks as compared to the same period last year,” he noted

Mr Soomro said that the situation would prove a boon for growers of both Sindh and Balochistan as water would be available to them for cultivation of thousands of acres. He said flows were now being ensured into all canals off-taking the barrages.

BADIN: Sindh Minister for Irri­ga­tion Syed Nasir Hussain Shah has directed the officials concerned to ensure a judicious distribution of water among all growers in Badin district.

He was speaking to leaders of the Save Badin Committee (SBC), which has been running a sustained struggle to force the authorities concerned to take measures for overcoming the persisting water crisis in the district, at a meeting in Darbar Hall of the DC office here on Monday.

Minister for Agriculture Ismail Rahu, CM’s adviser on water issue Ash­­faq Memon, Senator Dr Sikan­dar Mandhro, MPAs Taj Moham­mad Mallah, Mir Allah Bakhsh Talpur and other PPP leaders accompanied Mr Shah. Officials of the Sindh Irrigation and Drainage Authority (Sida) also attended the meeting.

Nasir Shah assured SBC leaders that all genuine issues of growers would be addressed. In this regard, he said, the officials concerned had already been asked to take stern action against those involved in water theft by resorting to various unlawful practices.

He said that Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah would be visiting the tail-end areas of this district within a week or so to assess the situation.

SBC leaders, including Mir Noor Ahmed Talpur, Azizullah Dero and Syed Khuda Dino Shah informed the minister that the entire tail-end area in Badin had been without water or was receiving a scant supply over the last several months.

They said they were also suffering heavy losses due to the loss of season for the cultivation of paddy/rice, which was the chief crop of this region.

They made it clear to the minister that as long as illegally raised blockages along watercourses were there, water could not be supplied to all parts of the district judiciously.

They urged him to order removal of all blockages and a halt to the release of water into flood canals. This should be taken as a test of PPP leadership’s sincerity with the farming community of the district and their commitment to resolve such chronic issues, they added.

Local PPP leaders Haji Saeen Bakhsh Jamali, Malik Fazal and others endorsed SBC grievances and recommended appropriate action to the minister. They told Mr Shah that growers of the district had long been holding protests over unavailability of irrigation and drinking water in their respective areas. They noted that one of the major reasons for the persisting crisis was blockages erected at different spots along Phulelli Canal.

The PPP leaders informed the ministers that the lands receiving water through the Alipur regulator were not getting their due share of water.

Mr Shah held out the assurance that the provincial government would take urgent measures to dismantle blockages in the light of the recommendations of the committee concerned.

After the meeting, the irrigation minister told local reporters that grievances of the farming community were being addressed with keen interest. He said the top PPP leadership was very much concerned about the water crisis in this district. He said the government was making all-out efforts to provide maximum possible relief to the crisis-hit population.

The Sindh government had constituted a 19-member technical committee a few months back to look into the causes of the water crisis in Badin district and recommend measures to overcome it. The committee is headed by water expert Idris Rajput.

After undertaking a survey of the district and assessing the situation, Mr Rajput and his team recently advised the SBC to wait till improved flows in canals so that blockages could be detected and other factors identified.

Mr Shah noted that the federal rulers were not releasing Sindh’s Rs150 billion share due to which the province was faced with financial crisis.

Agriculture Minister Rahu said that the country was facing worst ever crises due to flawed policies of the PTI [Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf] government. He claimed that unr­est prevailed among people of the entire country due to rising inflation and price hike. He said that due to a financial crisis, the Sindh government was unable to complete a number of development schemes in the province.

Regarding water issue, he said the situation was now improving fast due to better flows into Indus.

Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2019