HYDERABAD: Despite having been completed two years ago, Darawat Dam, a vital project for irrigating thousands of acres land in rain-fed areas of Jamshoro and Thatta districts, remains in limbo thanks to slow place of work on laying irrigation network to bring the stored water to the farmland.

The dam project was funded by the federal government but the irrigation network was to be built by the Sindh government’s irrigation department to connect the reservoir to its vast and labyrinthine distribution system.

The dam currently holds 50,000 acre feet water from this year’s monsoon rains but over the past two years, it did not fill to a sufficient level to enable it to irrigate the 25,000 acres that fall within its command area.

Although the dam’s main structure had been completed in 2013, the other related works took another year to finish in Aug 2014. Some issues like distribution of water and rights of lower riparian still remain to be addressed by the provincial government to which Wapda will eventually hand over the reservoir.

Since the dam authorities could not release the stored water in the absence of an irrigation network, the landowners whose ground aquifers had greatly diminished due to the dam’s construction were allowed to get water from the dam, said the dam’s project director, Iqbal Sheikh.

“Such landowners are allowed to fix pipes to get water through gravitational flow,” he said and estimated that it would bring under cultivation around 1,000 acres.

Inquiries by Dawn revealed the irrigation department was still in the process of finalizing consultants whose ‘request for proposals’ would be opened on Oct 20 and then the firm with the lowest bid would be chosen to formulate proposals as to which high efficiency irrigation system suited the area to be fed by the dam.

The dam, with pond area spread over 10,500 acres, is located in Jamshoro district while its command area falls within Thatta district. The Sindh government plans to distribute land in this area among small farmers to make the vast tracts of barren land arable.

The dam’s site, identified by the irrigation department, is in an area that is dependent on spate irrigation system. Nai Baran, a hill torrent, brings water flows that originate from lower Khirthar Range of hills in Balochistan’s Bella district and reach hilly plains.

The spate irrigation system makes use of the water of hill torrents, springs and rainfall to irrigate land which the community diverts from one field to the other by raising earthen banks to retain soil moisture.

The dam has a separate outlet to release water for tail-enders to enable them to cultivate land in the event of less or no rainfall in catchment areas.

According to a relatively old study carried out by the National Engineering Services of Pakistan, close to 1.4 million acres can be made arable with the use of spate irrigation system in Sindh where it is still an unregulated sector.

The catchment area of the dam, which has a storage capacity of 85 feet to store 121,600 acre feet of water, is spread over 3,151 sq kms from where several streams and hill torrents are supposed to flow towards the reservoir’s pond receives little rainfall.

Officials said that around 185mm of rainfall, in 24 hours, was needed to fill the dam. The land to be brought under cultivation was un-surveyed and the erratic pattern of rainfall induced by climate change had made cultivation of crops somewhat difficult for the local community over the years, making them dependent on brackish subsoil water, they said.

They said the absence of rainfall meant groundwater aquifers too could not recharge. Hence the dam, conceived by the previous PPP government, provided an ideal opportunity to the community to cultivate their land.

The Sindh government has so far distributed documents of 625 acres, 25-acre piece each, among 25 women but since the land remains un-surveyed, actual number of landowners with revenue documents is unknown. The land distribution has since hit snags in the wake of a Supreme Court directive about disposal of state land.

Besides, the agriculture department is yet to come up with a plan for crop cultivation management, suggesting landowners as to what kinds of crops best suit the area and how the department will check cultivation of high delta crops in this otherwise water stressed area in future.

Wapda chief engineer (headquarters) Gul Mohammad Junejo said that on its part the Wapda had created 73 outlets - connected with one off-taking canal, one minor and three distributaries spread over 46 kilometres - for onward water distribution in the command area. On an average, 397 acres would be brought under cultivation in the command areas of the outlets, he said.

He admitted that ever since the dam had been built spate flows for downstream users had been blocked but promised once the dam had been filled the storage would be sufficient for cultivation of crops on 25,000 acres in summer and winter season for a couple of years.

On Oct 14 this year, Sindh irrigation secretary Zaheer Hyder Shah chaired a meeting to discuss related works of the dam project and decided to form a committee – to be notified soon by the irrigation department – which would work out modalities for operation and maintenance of the dam in future.

“Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, himself a civil engineer, has taken a keen interest in (making) the dam operational,” said an official.

He said that Wapda wanted the irrigation department officials to work in tandem with its officers so that they could be trained by contractors because ultimately it were they who would run the dam after the contractor finally handed it over to Wapda following expiry of three years contractual obligation of operation and maintenance in August 2017.

An officer of the irrigation department pointed out that Wapda had not built a high efficiency pilot project (as per project cost-I of Darawat Dam project at a cost of Rs40m) while Mr Junejo explained that it was a separate component of the project directly linked with the release of funds by the federal government.

According to Sindh secretary of irrigation, the officers had to be imparted training in the dam management and the purpose of the committee was to streamline such issues.

“Operation and maintenance issues need to be understood by our officers. Once consultants are finalized for conducting study on this kind of high efficiency system, work will move on a fast track,” he said.

Published in Dawn October 23rd, 2016