LARKANA: Sindh in a recent meeting of Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) demanded Centre to unfreeze and release the funds allocated for Right Bank Outfall Drain (RBOD) to complete the project, Senator Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, who represented Sindh in the meeting, told Dawn on Saturday.

He said he discussed the threadbare issue of RBOD with Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, who presided over the meeting.

The RBOD was started in 2001 and was yet to be completed even after 21 years, he said, and disclosed that funds had been stopped by the federal government for years.

He conceded that Sindh had confronted difficult situation during recent spell of unprecedented rains as the incomplete RBOD had been an obstacle in speedy disposal of rainwater.

Sindh alone could not afford to allocate such voluminous funds for the project, therefore Centre should realise the gravity of the situation and lend financial support for the early completion of the project, he said.

He said the issue of earmarking more funds and releasing for the construction of Makhi-Farash Link Canal was also raised so that water could be provided to Thar power plants for the electricity generation.

He said federal government had allocated funds in Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for the project, but Sindh had not yet received the same so far which, he added, was causing delay in the construction of vital water link to the Thar power plants.

The Ecnec in May 2011 had approved the project to the tune of Rs27 billion. He said putting things on the back burner would definitely affect the power generation capacity of the plants in Thar.

Mr Khuhro said rapid sea erosion in Thatta, Badin and other coastal areas had eaten up millions of acres of fertile land which demanded early construction of a ‘retention wall’. This important issue was also raised in the Ecnec meeting, as the project was gathering dust since long, he said.

Sindh had also, in the session, called for urgent fund allocations and speedy release to undertake the linings of irrigation channels, minors and distributaries, he said.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2022