HYDERABAD: The Sindh Abadgar Ittehad (SAI) has expressed serious concern over equitable water distribution in Sindh and accused the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) of denying the province its share in water.

At its meeting held here on Thursday, the growers’ body noted that there was no water available even for drinking, but still Irsa was storing it in Tarbela dam while flood canals had been opened.

Equitable distribution of water was not being ensured from Rohri Canal where Rangers troops had been deployed and drinking water was not available in Kotri barrage’s command area, said the meeting chaired by Nawab Zubair Talpur.

The participants expre­ssed concern that the irrigation officials, who were supposed to monitor water flows in Punjab, mostly stayed in Karachi and Hyderabad.

They accused the Sindh government of playing politics over the issue and lacking seriousness to resolve it. The meeting asserted that cultivation of rice was banned in the command areas of perennial canals, but still the practice continued. The SAI demanded enforcement of the ban on rice cultivation.

The participants called for provision of fertiliser from factories. The meeting demanded removal of the executive engineer of Rohri Canal for his failure to ensure judicious distribution of water, saying that Rangers should be deployed in the area.

The SAI president told the meeting that talks for resuming trade between Pakistan and India were under way, but the business activity if resumed would harm farmers considerably.

Published in Dawn, May 13th, 2022