MUZAFFARGARH, April 22: Civil society organisations have pointed finger at World Bank and Irrigation Department officials for increasing land erosion by the Indus River in four mauzas in the northeast of the Taunsa Barrage site.

The Punjab government launched Rs11 billion Taunsa Barrage Rehabilitation and Modernisation project in 2005.

Civil society organisations and reporters visited the barrage site and its surrounding areas on Sunday and witnessed the Indus River eroding lands in Loun Wala, Qaim Wala, Pirhar Gharbi and Khai Soyam.

The Indus River is just one kilometre from the Magassin Canal and local residents said the river was six kilometres from the canal last year.

Councillors Sajjad Hussain and Muhammad Ibrahim and others said Punjab Irrigation Minister Amir Sultan Cheema, during his visit to the barrage in February, had promise that an embankment would be constructed at the eastern side of the barrage and water cess and agriculture tax would be waived but nothing had happened.

They said the authorities had blocked the river water from the western side to construct barrage gates which had diverted water flow to the eastern side.

The team also visited those areas which had been waterlogged due to, what the local people said, excessive amount of water released into the Muzaffargarh canal.

While water logging was on the rise in the area, a union council nazim allegedly choked a drain meant for reducing water logging by establishing a petrol pump in the middle of the drain.

Local residents said they had informed the irrigation minister regarding the pump. They said the minister had referred their application seeking the removal of the petrol pump to Dera Ghazi Khan Irrigation Chief Engineer Muhammad Hafeez. Mr Hafeez referred the application to the Basira sub-divisional officer and the SDO referred their case to the Kot Addu executive engineer and later on their application was lost in official files.

The team also visited Basti Sheikhan established for the displaced people of the Taunsa Barrage. There are 407 houses in the colony constructed by the Irrigation Department. The department allotted a ‘house’ to each family and each house consisted of a room only without any boundary wall, kitchen or latrine.

“In my previous house, where now Coffer Dam runs, there were three rooms, a kitchen and a latrine,” says 45-year-old Amina.

She said Irrigation Department officials lived in four-acre bungalows while they had been forced to live in single-room houses where they had no privacy.

Residents said the colony lacked water arrangements and electricity.

But more than water or privacy matters, what worries more to these people is their livelihood.

“We have been catching fish here for the last one hundred year and it is the only thing we know,” said Zainab Bibi, in her early 50s.

“We used to catch more than 50 fish every day for a contractor, who would pay us Rs10 per fish beside two fish for dinner,” she said. With the construction of the Coffer Dam, they would lose their only means of livelihood, she said.

Residents said many gangs had built their hideouts along the river while they had been given houses which had no boundary walls.

Tight security arrangements were seen at the barrage site. A construction company has hired private guards for the security of installations following violence by workers at the barrage site on April 8. These security guards did not allow the team to enter the barrage site and stopped reporters from taking snaps of the barrage. Later, Descon Admin Officer Masoodul Hassan said one had to take prior permission from the Irrigation Department to visit the barrage.