HYDERABAD, Aug 5: The Sindh Abadgar Board has demanded that the water discharge report of each channel including the availability of water for tail-end areas should be made available daily.

It called upon the Sindh agriculture department that encroachments along canals and its branches should be removed with the help of Rangers and irrigation paths should be made motorable.

At a meeting held here on Saturday, board leaders said that the 1991 water accord had been rendered ineffective due to implementation of the 1994 agreement of the so-called ministerial committee.

Abdul Majeed Nizamani presided over the meeting.

It appealed to President Gen Pervez Musharraf to order implementation of the 1991 water accord in letter and spirit.

The ministerial committee’s agreement, which led to a cold war between Sindh and Punjab, had already been declared null and void not only by the federal ministry of law and other institutions concerned but also by the president himself.

It said that the agriculture sector of Sindh had been destroyed due to non-implementation of the 1991 water accord.

It claimed that if embankments of 1,100 canals, distributaries and minors were lined which would cost Rs45 billion, about 5.9 MAF water could be saved and water logging and salinity could be controlled to the extent of 20 per cent.

The meeting said that the amount could be made available by cutting non-development expenditure of district governments to the extent of 33 per cent.

It said that if the proposal was accepted, there would be no burden on the national exchequer.

It said that due to continued violation of water accord, corruption in the irrigation department had become the order of the day due to the rotation programme and the sale of irrigation water.

It recommended that a committee should be appointed comprising officials of the irrigation department, farmers and police to ensure water supply to growers through the supply

of water according to

designed dimensions of each canal, distributary and head regulator.

It claimed that due to injudicious distribution of water between years 2000 to 2006, corruption, mismanagement, inordinate increase in prices of diesel, fertilizers, pesticides, tractors, non-availability of certified seeds, weak research and frequent transfers of senior officers due to political interference and decreased prices of crops, production had received a tremendous setback.

The meeting said that during these years, wheat production had been reduced by 36 per cent, sugarcane by 45 per cent, rice by 40 per cent, banana by 80 per cent, onion by 35 per cent, pulses by 90 per cent and oilseed by 40 per cent.

The meeting noted that in this way, Sindh had suffered a loss of Rs100 billion in crop production during the past six years.

It said that reduction in crop production created unemployment, hunger, lawlessness, kidnappings, murders and robberies and massive migration from rural to urban areas.

The meeting recommended that in order to save the agriculture sector of Sindh, postings and transfers of officers concerned should be made purely on the basis of merit and seniority.

It said that prices of agriculture inputs should be brought at the level of India and a focal point should be set up in each union council where all facilities should be provided to growers.

The meeting said that the sugarcane road cess fund was exclusive property of growers and sugar mills.

It demanded that the fund should be spent on the sugarcane research and farm-to-market-roads.

It proposed that the fund should be spent not by the district governments but by the sugarcane committee headed by DCO with representatives of highways, sugar mills and growers as its members.

It said that taluka revenue office was playing a pivotal role in maintenance of record of rights, transfer of properties of deceased and joint properties, issuing of sale certificate, tax exemptions to small growers, recovery of taxes, survey of cultivated and barren lands and providing relief during rains and floods.

The meeting demanded that the senior member of the Board of Revenue and not the district government should be authorised to transfer any revenue officer upto the level of mukhtiarkar.