• The regulator releases 4,000 cusecs from the drain to save it from overflowing in the event of floods
• The underpass gives passage to Pangrio Dhoro’s natural route and allows its water to fall into Puran Dhoro

BADIN: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Wednesday inaugurated escape regulator on spinal drain of Left Bank Outfall Drain, which had capacity of releasing 4,000 cusecs from the drain to save it from overflowing during floods, and an underpass that gave passage to Pangrio Dhoro’s natural route and allowed its water to fall into Puran Dhoro.

The underpass was a major ‘intervention’ on the drain at a point, which had brought residents of Tharparkar, Badin and Mirpurkhas districts to a standoff in 2022 floods when the authorities were mulling to breach the spinal drain to save areas in the upper reaches of the drain from flooding.

Sindh Irrigation Minister Jam Khan Shoro and secretary irrigation Zarif Khero briefed the chief minister about the interventions. Shoro said that LBOD’s water would be offloaded through the two interventions -- if it faced danger of overtopping during floods and rains. The projects were to be undertaken to revive natural waterways like Pangrio and Dhoro Puran as spinal drain component of LBOD had blocked their natural routes at the time of the drain’s construction, he said.

Shoro said that multiple interventions were planned in the spinal drain which would be completed by next monsoon season and this would ease pressure on waterways like Hakro river.

Four underpasses were to be built. Issue of Mirpurkhas Main Drain (MMD) would also be addressed and underpass at RD-210 was built under irrigation department’s annual development plan (ADP) scheme, he said.

Zarif informed the chief minister that Pangrio Dhoro would now cross through underpass with 2,500 cusecs discharge capacity while the regulator on the spinal drain had 4,000 cusecs capacity. These passages would allow runoff of Pangrio Dhoro and spinal drain to join Dhoro Puran, an old natural waterway, blocked by LBOD in the 80s, he said.

He said that a submerged weir would be built at RD-297 of the spinal drain near Jhuddo, a regulator at RD-7-RD-8 of Puran Dhoro with a capacity of 2,000 cusecs and an underpass at RD-276 of the spinal drain would be built by next year. “Natural waterways of the area will be restored with execution of all these interventions in the areas which had been problematic in spinal drain,” he said.

Project Director Javed Memon disclosed that Rs2.9 billion were spent on remodeling of Puran Dhoro’s banks (112 RDs, from RD-110-210 and RD-210-222) and Rs550m were spent on the regulator under the World Bank- funded Sindh Flood Emergency Rehabilitation Programme.

The chief minister said at the inauguration ceremony that LBOD appeared to be a good initiative in 80s but over time it created problems for people. “Late Dr Sikandar Mandhro told me that Benazir Bhutto saheba had taken notice of complaints of Badin’s residents about LBOD which always wreaked havoc in their area during monsoon season. Afterwards, Wapda, too, had to concede it had committed mistakes [in the drain’s design],” CM said.

He recalled that there was immense pressure in 2022 to breach the drain at RD-210 to give relief to people in the upstream areas but then authorities found out a solution to avoid the breach. After floods of 2020 and 2022, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari asked him to resolve this problem once and for all and today this problem finally stood resolved, he said.

He said that Badin faced water shortage problem for being tail-end district and that was the reason the distributaries of the area were being lined to overcome the area’s chronic shortage problem. Kotri Barrage’s Akram Wah would be remodelled as well and this would finally help improve water supply in tail-end reaches, he said.

Mr Shah promised that a reservoir would be built in Ali Bundar area, as mentioned by irrigation minister, to enable the coastal area’s people to cultivate their lands.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2024