KARACHI: The Sindh government has decided to deploy Rangers at different canals, distributaries and channels to stop water theft so that water can be provided to tail-end areas.

This was decided by caretaker Chief Minister Fazal-ur-Rahman while presiding over a meeting of the irrigation department at the CM House. It was the second meeting within a week which was called to look into the problems the growers were facing at the tail end.

At the earlier meeting on Monday, the CM had directed the irrigation department to take strict action against water thieves by registering FIRs against them so that water can be provided to the farmers at tail-end areas.

CM directs irrigation secretary to identify spots from where water is stolen

On Thursday, after a briefing by Irrigation Secretary Jamal Shah about the flow of water at Guddu, Sukkur and Kotri barrages, Mr Rahman said the Nara Canal had a capacity of 13,649 cusecs against which it withdrew 10,500 cusecs.

The irrigation secretary said there was water theft at different distributaries and added that 50 FIRs had been registered so far.

The CM said the Rangers would be deployed to aid the police so that water theft can be controlled.

“The cases of theft should be registered directly against landlords,” he added.

The CM directed the irrigation secretary to identify the spots of canals, distributaries and branches from where water was stolen and hand over the list to the home secretary who would then coordinate with the Rangers about their deployment.

The chief minister also spoke with the Rangers DG for deployment of his soldiers along the canals.

The CM was informed that withdrawal from the Guddu Barrage was 3,054 cusecs for Begari Sindh, 7,700 cusecs for Desert Pat and 6,626 cusecs for Ghotki feeders.

Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2018