HYDERABAD, Sept 22: The Sindh Agriculture Forum has said that the Rs1.5 billion sought by the Sindh government to improve the irrigation network should be spent on the needs of the farming community and not on the wishes of the irrigation officials.

In a statement faxed to Dawn on Wednesday, SAF president Noor Ahmed Nizamani said that according to the official plan, a part of the amount would be spent on the lining of 1,550 watercourses.

He argued that before improving condition of canals and distributaries, watercourse lining would be a waste of money because the canals and distributaries had been littered with weeds, silt and other objects which had hampered normal flow of water.

He suggested that instead of lining that many watercourses, the government should line 100 minors and distributaries. That way, he said, the bed levels of the minors would be restored to the original designs, embankments would be strengthened, breaches would not occur and water would smoothly flow from upper stretches to tail ends.

Mr Nizamani said that a sizable part of the funds should be spent on cleaning of canals and distributaries. He pointed out that on the one hand, Sindh did not get enough water and, on the other, whatever water it received was mishandled and mismanaged by the Sindh irrigation department.

Giving an example of the Rohri Canal, he said that the 200- mile-long canal had a capacity to flow 18,000 cusecs of water and in the past, its banks had trees and its inspection path had been properly maintained. These days, he lamented, on a windy day, sand clouds were formed on its dusty banks and major breaches had occurred in the canal.

He recalled that the last breach that occurred near Oderolal had destroyed hundreds of houses, rendered thousands of people homeless and damaged standing crops over hundreds of acres. Despite that, he deplored, the official responsible for the breach had been promoted to the rank of chief engineer.

According to him, five years ago the irrigation department had prepared a plan for stone pitching of the canal at an estimated cost of Rs10 million for one mile. Two yeas ago the federal government announced that it would provide a grant of Rs10 billion for improving the irrigation system in Sindh.

The department officials, he complained, shelved the original plan of pitching and prepared another plan, according to which Rs7 billion would be spent just on the earth work of Rohri Canal.

This is not to criticise, he stressed, but just to point out how did the irrigation department work. The executive engineers of Wapda and the high officials of the Sindh communication and works department had been officially provided Pothohar jeeps but every executive engineer of the provincial irrigation department rode in an official Pajero, he said.

Exposing the worst condition of the Rohri Canal, he pointed out that it had been littered with objects like debris of the bridges which had not been removed for years. He drew the attention to the remains of a submerged bridge under the canal crossing on Tando Adam-Bhit Shah road and an abandoned railway bridge that had caved in.

He claimed that water supply through the Rohri Canal would increase by 30 percent if those and other objects were removed. Likewise, he said, other water-channels of Sindh were not properly flowing because of criminal negligence of the irrigation officials.

The SAF president demanded that the government should conduct a study on the condition of canals and distributaries of Sindh through a team of experts comprising civil engineers from private sector and representatives of the farmers organizations. The study, he said, should redefine the provincial government's role in ensuring an efficient irrigation system through enhanced participation of farmers.