KARACHI, Oct 28: In the face of water shortages and availability of relatively much less bank credit than Punjab, farmers in Sindh have shown a much better per hectare wheat yield in the last three years and are set to give a production of 3,503 tons from an acre next spring.

An official document indicates that Sindh is set to harvest 3.5 million tons of wheat from 992 million hectares with an average per hectare yield of 3,531 tons a hectare next March-April.

Punjab is expected to give a crop of 19.40 million tons from 6.46 million hectares with an average yield of 3,000 tons.

Balochistan is expected give an output of 876,000 tons and NWFP 1.22 million tons.

The average per acre hectare wheat yield of Sindh in the last three years is more than 3,400 tons as against about 2,600 tons for Punjab.

“We dig in deep in soil, try to get best available seeds, manage water utilisation effectively to get maximum possible output from the field and put in extra labour to harvest a good crop,’’ Syed Qamaruzzaman Shah, President of Sindh Agriculture Association, informed Dawn on telephone from Lahore on Tuesday.

Sindh is getting irrigation water share on the basis of historical usage rather than a consensus formula agreed ion 1991. It gets a much reduced share of water. In Punjab, the water availability is higher than the indicated share and is also supplemented by under-ground water reservoir which is never included in total pool of water availability of the country.

Bank credit to Sindh farmers is also scarce as compared to agricultural loans being given to farmers in Punjab.

According to a report of State Bank of Pakistan, the volume of agricultural credit in the last six years, from 2001 to 2007, increased by 259 per cent from Rs58.9 billion to Rs211 billion. Punjab’s share increased from 75.3 per cent to 83.4 per cent, but that of Sindh declined from 17.6 per cent to 11.7 per cent.

One advantage that Sindh has over Punjab and other provinces is flood fed land which is rich with alluvial soil called ‘’kutcha ’’ which is roughly 10 per cent of total agricultural area in the province.

Located on either side of River Indus, the soil is fed with flood waters virtually every year. When flood waters recede, it leaves behind a thick layer of alluvial soil which is fertile.

Stretched over 1.4 million acres, the area is covered with thick forests and is used by powerful zamindars for their comfort houses in these forests. Known as ketties, these comfort houses are permanent and safe sanctuaries for criminals who operate under patronage of area wadera.

From these comfort houses, the waderas manage their wheat crop on kutcha land on either side of River Indus. As a major part of this rich fertile land is un-demarcated and belongs to government. But for all practical purposes bulk of this rich fertile land is under occupation of local waderas who reap rich wheat and other minor crops every year without paying any revenue to the government.

The former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, with help of the then army chief tried to bring this entire kutcha land under jurisdiction of government by way of demarcation, setting up of police stations, buildings roads for small population settlements and provide them with hospitals, schools and other social facilities. But power landlords of Sindh thwarted all such attempts and waderas are set again to harvest a rich wheat crop from land that belongs to government.