ISLAMABAD, Sept 26: The World Bank’s inspection panel has acknowledged that the World Bank-funded Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD), the Tidal Link and the Cholri Wier contained design faults and their construction has led to sea intrusion and badly affected the ecology and livelihood in Thatta, Badin and southern Sindh.
The panel that serves as an independent mechanism to ensure accountability in the World Bank operations also conceded that Indus Basin Irrigation System (IBIS) has also led to increased salinity in the underground water. As a result, the quality of land and drinking water deteriorated.
Increased salinity, it said, had affected large tracts of agricultural lands and the Tidal Link failure had severely harmed the local ecosystem, wildlife and fisheries, upon which many people depend for their livelihoods. People in these areas were also faced with serious problems of drinking water, besides having lost grazing lands.
The overall morphology of the region is being changed.
These conclusions were contained in a report into the 25-year $785 million National Drainage Programme (NDP) in Pakistan. It emerged in the investigation that the Bank had itself ignored its own operating policies and procedures in funding the programme that also included completion of LBOD as part of its pipeline of investments.
The panel said the World Bank itself confessed that implementation of the project has proceeded more slowly than expected. The bank management said the environmental impact assessment for LBOD expressed concern that the Tidal Link could have serious ecological impacts on dhands, and that the northern side of the Tidal Link was raised and the Cholri Weir build to prevent over-drainage of the dhands at low tide.
The management said almost as soon as the LBOD system began operating, the Tidal Link experienced problems such as collapse of a 250 foot section of the weir. Attempts to close the breached weir failed due to monsoon weather and inaccessibility of the site. A subsequent strong cyclone almost destroyed the weir and further breached the Tidal Link embankment. Management acknowledges disruptions to livelihoods from the severe weather events but does not consider that these disruptions may be attributable directly to damage to the Tidal Link and failure of the Cholri Weir.
The panel held that the selected alignment for the Tidal Link was politically attractive because it minimised the discharge of water across the international boundaries. This alignment was, however, technically and environmentally risky. Events have confirmed that the area in lower Sindh through which the chosen alignment passed represented an extremely difficult and physically hostile environment. Remote sensing data confirmed some of the doubts expressed by the local people.
The panel observed that significant technical mistakes were made during the design of the Tidal Link embankments and the Cholri Weir . The designers did not consider that the drainage system in Badin area would convey the flood water down to the low lying areas of the Badin district much more than in the past, heightening the existing risk. The panel found that the designers had not evaluated the likelihood that under certain meteorological conditions, high surface water run-off from upstream areas could coincide with high water levels in the Arabian Sea . The design assumption also failed during the July 2003 rainfall.
In addition, no provisions had been made to temporarily store excess surface water in storage areas or agricultural land in the event that simultaneous high tides from the sea prevented flood water run-off. The panel also said that the main drain should have been designed with a higher safety margin.
The panel noted that there were no provisions for emergency plans, controlled flood of dedicated areas or flood control gates, nor for emergency closure of the Tidal Link. No facilities were in place to warn the people and mitigate flood impact. The panel finds that the LBOD designers underestimated the risk of extreme meteorological events and made insufficient arrangements to deal with storms of higher intensity.
The panel also found instances of poor quality construction. It held that the Tidal Link structures were critical to the performance of the system but the design had substantial inherent risks. The design and construction went ahead without adequate provisions to minimise the risk that the structures would give way and to mitigate possible harms. The underestimation of risk and lack of appropriate technical measures have contributed to suffering of local people in lower Badin.
The LBOD system, combined with the partial destruction of the Tidal Link, heightened the risks to local people from flooding. The situation was particularly bad when heavy rainfall inland and high tides and storm at sea coincided. Floods during monsoon rains in 2003 led to the loss of many lives.
The panel said the LBOD system has itself led to significant adverse environmental effects in Badin and Thatta districts. With the collapse of the Tidal Link structures, the water and salinity balance of the dhands ecosystem has changed profoundly. More broadly, the LBOD structures are part of the overall transformation of water and sediment flows in the lower delta.
It concluded that effects of the NDP, including those on the local populations of southern Badin did not feature in any significant way either in the design or supervision of the project. There was also a failure to develop a complete systems view early in the NDP project as reflected by the restricted focus on the project and the EA. This hampered the government s and the Bank s ability to assess impacts, consider alternatives, and develop mitigation measures for the project-affected areas in southern Sindh in line with Bank policies.
