August 28, 2006	Monday	Sha'aban 3, 1427

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SANGHAR, Aug 27: Expressing concern over damages worth billions of rupees caused by several breaches in the Right Bank Outfall Drain, farmers on Friday said that the mega project was a complete failure.

They said that the main objective of the Rs30 billion project was bringing down water table in the lower Indus valley to end the menace of water-logging and salinity.

They said the LBOD had inundated hundreds of villages and thousands of acres land during this monsoon season.

Its component project, Makhi reservoir, built at a cost of Rs1,942 million, was aimed at to bring more land under plough but there is no water to fill it.

Farmers told Dawn that both the projects had brought devastation instead of prosperity as claimed by the Word Bank and Wapda.

They said that it was claimed by Wapda that the construction of surface drains would facilitate disposal of rain and excess irrigation water.

The LBOD starts from Nawabshah district and was supposed to empty into the Arabian Sea after carrying effluent water from Sanghar, Mirpurkhas and Badin districts.

Several sub-drains and branch drains join it at various places.

Hassan Askari of the Small Growers Association said that there were design faults in the LBOD. As a result, sea water reached fertile lands via the LBOD.

He said that out of 795 tube-wells hardly 40 to 50 were in working condition and costly machinery had been stolen.

He said that branch, sub and main drains and spinal drain had choked with silt and were no more capable to carry rain and tube-well water.