AT least on the surface, it appears that for the first time in many years, the government has undertaken a step in Balochistan that may actually redound to the benefit of the Baloch people. On Thursday, the prime minister inaugurated the 363-kilometre Kachhi canal project in Dera Bugti’s Sui tehsil. The project, costing Rs80bn, is expected to irrigate some 72,000 acres of barren land in the tehsil in its first phase; its second and third phases are planned to extend across the Kachhi plain and beyond it to the Jhal Magsi, Bolan and Naseerabad districts. On the occasion, the prime minister said that the project would change the destiny of the people in the Dera Bugti area, adding that Balochistan will become the country’s richest province.

It is heartening that a part of the long-deprived province is to benefit from the waters of the Indus via the new canal, enabling it to draw its rightful share from what is the lifeblood of agriculture in this country. Another means of livelihood will thus become available to the people of Dera Bugti, for whom the Sui gas field is among very limited sources of steady income. Those who undertake seasonal migration to work as farm labour in other parts of Balochistan or in Sindh at harvest time should be able to lead a less peripatetic existence. With the land becoming cultivable, not only would the production of food grain and other crops increase but land values will also register a rise. However, it is instructive to look at the fine print. With the canal originating from Taunsa barrage in Punjab, it tracks its way through that province for most of its length: of 363km in the first phase, only 81km lies in Balochistan; and there are no projected dates for when phases two and three will even commence. Also, given that the project is to provide irrigation water supply to 713,000 acres of land, it means that only one-tenth of the objective has so far been met. And although at 6,000 cusecs, the discharge capacity of the Kachhi canal is far more than that of the PAT feeder or the Kirthar canal, being a lower riparian region has its disadvantages. For valid reasons, disillusionment with the state runs high among the Baloch. To ensure that the project bears out its promise and ameliorates some of this disaffection, it must progress beyond the initial stage.

Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2017