PAKISTAN is geographically vast and ecologically diverse. The country has dry temperate mountains with the largest glaciers outside polar regions in the north, plains in the middle, coastal areas in the south, and arid mountains in the west. In between are the deserts of Cholistan and Thar, the canal zones of Punjab and Sindh, small valley irrigations, as well as dry temperate and moist temperate conifer forests in KP.

There is one unique geophysical area in the plains of Sindh and southern Punjab, artificially sandwiched between the embankments of the Indus from Kot Mithan in south Punjab to the coastal areas in Thatta and Sujawal in Sindh. This area is known as ‘Kacho’, or the riverine belt. Before the recently launched police operation in Punjab and Sindh, many of our urban compatriots may not have heard about this area and the tragedies suffered by its inhabitants.

The Kacha, or riverine area, is mostly spread over Sindh, where it runs all the way from Ghotki in the north to the coastal areas. However, it also constitutes the two southern Punjab districts of Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur/Rahim Yar Khan. The area has the lowest per capita government spending, as infrastructure like schools, hospitals, roads and markets cannot be laid as they can come in the way of the course of seasonal waterways.

The Kacha area is unique in the sense that these areas were once similar to any irrigation (inundation) plains as recently as the early part of the 20th century. Things changed when our colonial masters decided to lay down an irrigation system in the lower Indus area below Kot Mithan.

The Kacha area has the lowest per capita government spending.

Prior to this ‘development’, colonial planners had already started laying down an irrigation system drawing on (undivided) Punjab’s rivers, which were the smaller tributaries of the Indus. The irrigation system in upper Punjab (and this is also applicable to valley irrigations in KP) was smaller in scale and did not require embankments along the rivers.

The situation was radically different for the lower Indus area, where all five of Punjab’s rivers merged to form what is called the mighty Indus at Panjnad. Laying down an irrigation system below Panjnad required a different approach compared to upper Punjab. Here, the river was harnessed with the help of vast barrages and river embankments.

This vast infrastructural development created both winners and losers in Punjab, and the people of the Kacha area lost mightily. Before river embankments were built up to a height of nine to 10 metres from ground level on the Indus, the river’s water would flow naturally in the monsoon. Invariably, all human settlements — be they large towns like Hyderabad or Sukkur or the smallest human settlements — were on a natural high ground. The situation changed overnight with these “mountainous” embankments, which created the two distinct geographies of the ‘Kacha’ and ‘Pucca’ areas in Sindh and southern Punjab.

The high embankments made villages and human populations inside Kacha areas more vulnerable to flooding and river water flows, which were now controlled and channelised. The height of river water flow in the post embankment Kacha area could go up several metres, depending on glacial melt and rains in the monsoon, forcing hundreds of thousands to leave their homes every year to seek refuge on bunds or on spaces in canal areas outside the Kacha area. Meanwhile, the Pucca or canal command areas became ‘developed’ areas, with land asset values many times more than land asset values in the Kacha or riverine areas.

All this irrigation infrastructural dev­elopment took place some 125 years ago. The world had not heard of notions like Environmental Impact Assessment reports, so the colonial state was ‘free’ in its development endeavours. It proceeded without regard to the consequences for people in different locations.

After the three barrages on the Indus were built at Sukkur (1932), Kotri (1955) and Guddu (1965), it became an annual ritual for the unfortunate people of Kacha areas (and mammal wildlife) to migrate during monsoon flows. Obviously, this caused and continues to cause much misery for the people of the Kacha areas every year. The consequences for wildlife have been fatal: wildlife poachers are aware of animal migration paths, where they hunt and kill them with sophisticated weapons.

The problem with the Kacha area is it cannot be developed in a traditional manner by putting up roads, schools, hospitals or markets. The river will only take such structure away. For this area, the development model employed by Bangladesh must be studied and adopted in order to better invest in the indigenous population and lessen their vulnerability to climate-related displacement.

The writer is a hands-on farmer and retired secretary, Forest & Wildlife Department, Sindh.

Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2023