SUKKUR: Member of the Senate Water Commission, Senator Taj Haidar, has said that despite being an agricultural country Pakistan lacks an efficient system for distribution and storage of water, as a result “either floods drown us or thirst kills us”.

The veteran senator of Pakistan Peoples Party who reached Sukkur on Monday to assess water crisis in Sindh and recommend suggestions to cope with the water shortage problem told media persons that water stored in dams and rivers should be used only for irrigation and a separate mechanism should be made for the storage and distribution in accordance with an agricultural plan. There was no set mechanism for storage at Mangala and Tarbela dams as to when to release water and when store it, he said.

“If adequate water is not released for kharif crops, then growers in Sindh will be forced to grow rice because they need water on time to grow cotton,” he said, adding that cotton was being imported because of water crisis.

Quoting Jam Mehtab and Saleem Mandvi, he said that they had raised voice in Senate for cotton cultivation, and demanded larger areas for cotton cultivation so that its import could be reduced.

He said that Punjab had increased areas for paddy which was not good for Sindh and Pakistan as well. There was dire need of water in Sindh and less water could create more problems, he said.

“Once a visiting Chinese team was shocked to learn that Pakistan being an agricultural country did not know what to grow where and in what quantity,” he said.

About cheap electricity, he confessed that Pakistan had no storage system like India had which used water to generate cheap power. Solar electricity had been provided to the Senate building for the last seven years “so we should consider other technological options for generation of cheap electricity in Pakistan,” he said.

He anticipated the situation with regard to water was improving. “If glacier melts at Skardu in time then the situation will improve, but if it melts beyond our expectations then it may cause floods in rivers,” he feared.

He said that the growers and farmers had complaints against water theft in different areas including Badin and tail-end areas and work was being done to stop the menace. There was a law to provide water to tail-enders and they were working on it to improve the system, he said.

About the emerging political situation, Mr Haider suggested to the interior minister to pay heed towards law and order situation instead of making arrests, which could further create anarchy and destabilisation in the country.

He requested politicians to work for the country and stop attacking one another because Pakistan still faced threats from terrorists who were carrying out activities at will in the country.

To a question regarding the census, he said that more than 30pc population had not been recorded in Sindh which was a great injustice with Sindh because lesser population meant lesser seats from Sindh in assemblies. History was witness to the fact that no country had developed on foreign aid, he said.

Published in Dawn,May 10th, 2022