HYDERABAD: Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) general secretary Zahid Bhurgari has said that anti-Sindh and anti-Pakistan lobbies wanted to destroy the farm sector of the province and the country by opposing plans of building dams while India is building reservoirs on the waters bordering Pakistan.

India was also planning to build a dam on Kabul River in collaboration with the Afghanistan government, he said in a statement issued here on Thursday.

The SCA general secretary said he was reading misleading statements against Diamer-Bhasha dam from those who had nothing to do with the agriculture sector of Sindh. Those critics were neither growers nor their bread and butter depended on the farm sector, he regretted.

If the dams were not built, Pakistan and Sindh would face severe water scarcity and the agriculture sector would be destroyed.

He stated that Sindh was mainly dependent on water flows from Tarbela to meet its agriculture needs. He maintained that Tarbela’s storage capacity had been reduced by 37pc due to silt. “Bhasha dam is the lifeline of Sindhi growers,” he remarked.

He said that out of 145 million acre feet (MAF) of flows in Pakistan, 80pc was seen in three months and only 20pc in the remaining nine months. He said Pakistan had only 185 dams, including two large ones, as compared to India’s 5,000 dams and China’s 84,000 dams, including 4,000 large ones.

Calling for averting looming water crisis in Pakistan and alluding to the statement of Dr Hassan Abbas, he said: “Some people are sent from America by anti-Pakistan lobby and they are giving misleading statements on Bhasha dam. I am ready to hold a debate with this foreign nationality holder at any forum on the topic.”

He believed that Bhasha dam was in Sindh’s favour as it was the future and guarantee of Sindh’s children. “I have just returned from Chilas after spending 23 days on the site of Bhasha dam. I will request all to avoid hypothetical grounds and harsh statements on Bhasha dam,” he said. After its construction, lifespan of Tarbela would increase by another 25 years, he added.

He urged people not to be part of the lobby that had vested interests as it wanted to see rural population being rendered unemployed and mass migration from the rural to urban areas.

He thanked the chief justice of Pakistan for taking interest in water reservoir projects in Pakistan and hoped that work on Bhasha dam would be completed in less than five years.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2018