HYDERABAD, Dec 11: The Save Coast Action Committee Badin — a conglomerate of various NGOs and traders associations — have demanded that the Left Bank Outfall Drain should be redesigned as its faulty designing has damaged the agricultural economy of the entire Badin district.

Speaking at a news conference at the Hyderabad Press Club on Thursday, leaders of the action committee said that the havoc wreaked by the Kadhan Patejo Outfall Drain and the LBOD in the 1999 cyclone and the recent rains had already been published in newspapers.

Quoting officials figures, they said about 67 people died, hundreds of cattle perished, 25,000 acres of standing crops were destroyed and 210 villages were washed away during the rains.

They pointed out that the drains had been designed against the natural flow of effluent and the inclusion of tidal link in the LBOD project was a criminal mistake as the link, instead of discharging effluent in the sea, had provided a permanent outlet to the sea water to erode the rich agriculture land.

They claimed that the KPOD had adversely affected a population of 500,000 of five union councils spread over thousands of acres of rich agricultural lands and added that the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank were equally responsible for the wrong planning of the project.

They said that the 1999 cyclone had proved beyond any doubt that the tidal link had lost its purpose as its embankments had washed away, submerging up to 50km of fertile land and claimed that even the fact-finding mission of the World Bank had submitted a report that termed the tidal link project a “dead phenomena”.

They said that the original cost of Rs8 billion of the LBOD had escalated to Rs32 billion and yet it had done more harm than good and also criticized the proposed drainage project above the LBOD and said that it would be equally harmful for the district.

The leaders of the action committee demanded that the entire LBOD project, including the KPOD and other drains, should be redesigned to save the people of Badin.

NOTICES ISSUED: The Sindh High Court Hyderabad circuit here on Thursday issued notices to the director general, Hda, and directors of the Building Control and the Planning and Development and two private respondents on a contempt of court application.