HYDERABAD: The Sindh irrigation department is yet to appoint a new project director for the Right Bank Outfall Drain-II (RBOD-II) since Noor Mohammed Memon had to relinquish the charge after the apex court had expressed its dissatisfaction over his performance.

Mr Memon, said to be a close relative of Sindh Chief Secretary Siddique Memon, and the executive engineer, Bahar Ali Jumani, quit their offices before the Sept 9 hearing of the Manchhar lake rehabilitation suo motu case taken up by the Supreme Court.

The Sindh government is in the process of appointing the new project director. The apex court had expressed its ire over absence of the federal secretaries of finance, planning and development from the hearing.

They were unable to respond to the apex court’s queries regarding the RBOD project during hearing of the case held in August. The court also appeared dissatisfied with a report of the Sindh irrigation secretary regarding the reverse osmosis (RO) plants installed around Manchhar lake to provide drinking water to the local population.

Manchhar lake’s rehabilitation is directly linked with the completion of the RBOD as the effluent finding its way into the lake is carried by RBOD-I which is commonly known as the Main Nara Valley Drain (MNVD) off-taking from Balochistan and upper Sindh.

The RBOD-II takes the effluent into Arabian Sea at Gharo. The MNVD and RBOD-II are connected with Indus link.

The development works on the RBOD-II being funded by the federal government since early 2000 is facing unusual delays and cost overruns. The delay casts an adverse impact on the biodiversity of Manchhar lake.

The Sindh irrigation department had in the recent past submitted the revised project cost (PC-I) to the federal government for approval which, according to the project’s superintending engineer, Imran Ali Shaikh, has been approved by Wapda. “Now it is sent to the federal government’s planning department for approval,” he says.

The irrigation department is seeking a second revision of the PC-I of the project, considering its delays on the part of the federal government. Earlier, it was revised upwards to Rs29 billion from Rs14 billion and the funds under the revised PC-I had been utilised but now estimates under the further revision are set at Rs64 billion, an amount which is to be finally approved by the federal government.

The Sindh government had worked out the cost under a revision at Rs71 billion which was later slashed to Rs64 billion by the Planning Commission.

The project authorities had earlier set different deadlines for the completion of the project, started in 2001. It was first set as Jan 2006 and then as Dec 2014.

“Now we are awaiting an approval of the revised PC-I and then we will see when the project is completed,” said an official. He said that since Wapda had approved the PC-I, it was expected that the revision would get through different forums like the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) and the Executive Committee of National Economic Council (Ecnec).

The reasons that forced the authorities concerned to seek back-to-back revisions of the project cost included increased capacity of the drain to carry effluent and the damage caused by floods in 2010 and 2014.

Earlier, the drain was to carry 2,271 cusecs of saline water. Under the new estimates, it would carry 3,525 cusecs as then prime minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali had ordered that the drain should carry effluent from Balochistan and that’s why the capacity of the entire drain — RBOD-I, II and III — was enhanced. Around 75 per cent of the physical work has been completed, according to the officials concerned.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2016