KARACHI: There is no threat of flood in Sindh at the moment as water discharge at Guddu and Sukkur barrages is only 400,000 cusecs which is likely to rise to 500,000 to 600,000 cusecs in the days to come while water discharge capacity of the barrages is well above a million cusecs, says Nisar Ahmed Khuhro.

Nevertheless, the department had taken necessary measures to tackle any situation head-on, said Mr Khuhro said at his first press conference as senior minister for information and irrigation at the Sindh Assembly on Thursday after relinquishing the charge of the education and literacy.

Also read: River Indus in medium flood

The irrigation staff had been put on high alert and their leaves had been cancelled, 46 points along river dykes had been declared sensitive and their monitoring had been stepped up, he said.

He compared the current water discharge figures with those of the flood of 2010 when water discharge was between 1.2 and 1.3 million cusecs and said that 500,000 to 600,000 cusecs water discharge would not pose any threat.

Mr Khuhro said that in the wake of devastating 2010 flood, the government had reinforced all dykes but despite that stones and other machinery required for further reinforcement of dykes was being to all embankments.

The Provincial Disaster Management Authority had been asked to evacuate population from riverine areas in the event of flood and set up tent cities for the evacuees equipped with medical camps to look after the ailing, he said.

He said the department was ensuring judicious distribution of water so that tail-end areas could get their due share in water for irrigating their crops. If there was water in canals, complaints of shortage would not be tolerated, he said.

Mr Khuhro assured farmers that all illegal watercourses would be dismantled and directed the staff posted at canals to submit him report of canals’ gauges on a daily basis.

Asked about PPP co-chairman’s long stay abroad, Mr Khuhro said Mr Zardari’s foreign visit should not be made an issue of as he used to stay abroad in past as well and return whenever he liked.

Mr Khuhro criticised the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan’s statement in favour of controversial Kalabagh Dam project and said that it amounted to insult of the assemblies including the KPK assembly which had thrice rejected the dam through resolutions.

He advised the PTI chief to exercise caution before talking about a controversial issue. Mr Khan should now tender an apology to nation for wasting their 200 days in a sit-in in Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2015

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