THATTA, June 12: Elected representatives, civil society activists and writers have called upon policy makers to take effective measures for rehabilitation of coastal communities affected by dams and barrages on the Indus river system.

They demanded that no more mega projects should be launched before complete rehabilitation of the Indus delta and fertile lands along the coast which had been swallowed by the sea.

They warned that the Sindh’s coast was drifting towards worst human catastrophe as millions of farmers and fishermen had lost their homes, land and livelihoods due to diversion of Indus water to benefit a few upstream.

They were speaking at a seminar “mega projects and disaster in Sindh coastal region” at the press club on Monday.

The seminar was organised by the Participatory Development Initiatives in collaboration with the Actionaid Pakistan.

The speakers said that coastal communities in Sindh had since long been battling with numerous kinds of disasters.

They said that after the 1999 cyclone and 2003 floods, the coastal region was experiencing a worst kind of drought due to low rainfall and no Indus River flow in the region.

They said that natural calamities had accelerated the rate of seawater intrusion and sea had eroded millions of acres of more coastal fertile land.

They said that ground water aquifers had been filled with salinity resulting in further degradation of coastal lands.

They said that a large number of families had become shelter-less as high sea tides had uprooted their homes and destroyed their livelihoods.

Thousands of communities face migration, food insecurity and health hazards, they said.

They said that Kharo Chhan, Keti Bundar, Shah Bundar, Badin and Golarchi talukas had been the worst hit as fertile lands had become part of the sea, agriculture completely destroyed and the fishing had drastically reduced.

The speakers said that besides natural disasters manmade mega projects had also largely contributed to disaster in the coastal Sindh.

“Dam construction in the upstream has completely deprived the coastal Sindh of its water share especially in the Indus flow downstream Kotri Barrage while technical flaws in mega project of the LBOD has ruined the agriculture land of two talukas of Badin”, they said.

A number of resolutions were passed in the seminar calling upon the government as well as international relief agencies to come forward taking concrete measures for the relief, rehabilitation and sustainable livelihoods of the disaster-hit communities.