NAUKOT: For the last eight days, workers were engaged in a tricky rather laborious job to put sandbags and erect a fence that holds on sacks for plugging breaches in a waterway, called Puran Dhoro in Badin district of lower Sindh region — battered by monsoon rains.

The divers were creating a fence-like structure made of bamboos in a wet bed of the drain where breach had occurred. This is tied with rope tightly and sacks then placed gradually underwater to build an artificial bund to stop water.

Bamboo woods of varying sizes is obtained from eucalyptus trees. Each length of wood is sharpened at one end before being used. Sanghar is home of these divers who mostly plug breaches because of their specialisation.

“Divers had erected bamboo one by one inside the bed by diving into water at the breach point. This is the most difficult part of the whole exercise when they start to create a fence in a curvy manner. A straight fence doesn’t bear pressure of water in case of any breach,” said an irrigation officer Shoaib Sughrio explaining dynamics of exercise at site of Puran Dhoro. Plugging work in two breaches at the Puran was under way near Badin district since last Saturday.

“achay, achay [c’mon, c’mon],” yelled the charged workers while putting a huge size bamboo at one of two breaches to be fully plugged. Sacks eventually attain height between two ends of the breach’s point.

Bags were filled with soil from nearby dry land and carried on boats from a point Puran Dhoro and spinal drain of LBOD (Left Bank Outfall Drain) merge at RD-297 that also marks zero point of Puran, an old natural waterway.

Both breaches in Puran were big in size, one at RD-8 and other at RD-7. Breach at RD-8 had been plugged, while that of RD-7 was 80 per cent closed. “It is 40pc closed from each side. The central path is a bit difficult and consuming time,” said one official at site.

Divers were endeavouring to finish work. “In fact, depth of water at RD-7 [breach site] was huge and bamboos of that size were arranged after great difficulty. Rest of work will be finished now as soon as possible,” said another officer.

Puran Dhoro was part of larger LBOD system that takes saline water to sea in coastal Badin district. Puran Dhoro outfalls in LBOD’s spinal drain at RD-297. The drain’s nomenclature is equated with spinal cord in human’s body given the burden of the entire quantum of drainage it carries right up to sea. Spinal drain cumulatively has 818 RDs (reduced distance).

Having designed discharge capacity of 4,600 cusecs, LBOD system receives flows from Benazirabad, Sanghar, Mirpurkhas, Badin and some portion of Naushahro Feroze during rains.

“LBOD is having a flow of 12,000 cusecs,” CM Sindh Murad Shah said at a press briefing lately.

Aug 27 evening witnessed two breaches in Puran. According to Dr Fehmida Mirza, breaches led to inundation of villages’ lands in her lower house constituency in Badin. She has been questioning LBOD’s functioning from day one due to its design.

“It has always spelt disaster for people of my district, be it cyclone or heavy rains. “I raised the matter [re-designing of LBOD] in the national assembly,” she said.

She refused to believe Aug 27 breaches were natural. “Both were cuts,” she insisted. “The cuts were given to provide relief to constituency of Mir Munawar Talpur, MNA and brother-in-law of PPP co-chairman [Asif Ali Zardari], in Mirpurkhas,” she said. She added her son and the Sindh Assembly member from the same area, Hasnain Mirza, was there with villagers for strengthening Puran’s bund. “Later, some people cut in drain’s bank”, she alleged.

Ever since heavy rains in August, Jhuddo-Naukot bridge remained closed for traffic. Water flows had been overtopping the said bridge which crosses over RD-305 of spinal drain. Drainage officials note gauges of LBOD system to measure rising level/declining trend of water at multiple points, RD-728, RD-468, RD-305, RD-295 and RD-245.

According to Irrigation Development Region-II Chief Engineer Zarif Khero, RD-728 reflects levels of flows entering the drain in Nawabshah and part of Naushahro Feroze. “This gauge, on Thursday, reflects 0.7ft drop in pre and post-breach levels,” he said. Other gauges like RD-245, RD-295 and RD-305 of spinal drain have shown marked decline in flows. Pre-breach gauge at RD-305 Roshanabad (Naukot-Jhuddo bridge) was 18.65ft which dropped to 16.35ft, Zarif said.

“RD-295 with pre breach level of 20.10ft plummeted to 17.55ft which means a substantial drop of 2.3ft in level there,” he added.

But, Zarif explained, 2.3ft reduction also includes 0.7ft reduction in LBOD components of Nawabshah and Sanghar. It means reduction in spinal drain is 1.6ft which is attributable to flows in two breaches.

“Once breaches are plugged, a rise of 1ft to 1.5ft is likely, but within tested gauges,” he said.

He said the irrigation department provided machinery and other breach plugging material for protection of infrastructure which is likely to be it by water from breaches.

Similarly, a 1.85ft drop was recorded at RD-245 when compared with pre and post breach levels of 18.55ft and 16.7ft respectively. “Breach at RD-8 was not smaller. It was also big, but smaller than RD-7, which is closed. The breach at RD-7 has been plugged by 50pc,” claimed Zarif Khero.

Growers in Badin like Ramzan Kaloi and Pir Bux Hashmani, concurred with Dr Mirza. “Cuts were given in Puran’s bund to offload spinal drain whose flows had been building pressure in Jhuddo, Tando Jan Mohammad and other areas,” they said.

Kaloi said he even got hold of man who gave this cut while villagers were strengthening vulnerable points of Puran.

“Our crops lost and areas inundated,” he said.

CE Zarif had sent a letter to commissioners of three divisions besides PDMA (Provincial Disaster Management Authority) Sindh on Aug 24, asserting that people living within or along the banks of historic waterways shall be instructed to leave as an appropriate location of incised channels of Dhoro Pura was being considered for intentional relief cut for discharging excess floodwaters into Indus delta creeks.

His communication argued that area with sparse population would be considered on priority.

“Owing to continuous rise of gauges, the banks of 132 miles spinal drain have become vulnerable and system has become susceptible to breach at any stage, God forbid!,” letter read.

Ever since it was built by Wapda in 90s, LBOD has been spelling disaster in its catchment, especially Badin. It was handed over to Sindh government in 2002. During 2011, late monsoon rains in Sept caused breaches, apparently due to deferred maintenance in the drain which had ravaged villages and standing crops in fields.

Now, multi-billion-rupee works were to be executed to address all design related defects in LBOD system, including construction of underpasses at four locations RD-275, RD-251, RD-239 and RD210+800. An amount of over Rs8bn were to be spent on these works by irrigation department, according to Khero.

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2022