HYDERABAD, Sept 10: The president of the Sindh Agriculture Forum, Mr Noor Ahmed Nizamani, has called for a fair share of irrigation water, reduction in agriculture taxes and facility of low-interest loans for water-starved province of Sindh.

In a statement issued here on Friday, he criticized recently launched project by the Sindh agriculture department for lining of 4,000 watercourses and other related works with Rs4 billion of loan from the World Bank.

He said at a time when canals and distributaries of irrigation water remain dry most of the year, lining of watercourses would not solve the problem of water shortage in Sindh. Further more, he claimed, the project was bound to fail because beds of minors and distributaries had been lowered due to inefficiency and mismanagement of irrigation officials.

He said nine of ten watercourses that had been lined in the past several years in Sindh were broken up by farmers because bed levels of canals and minors were not maintained at designed levels.

He cited the example of the Left Bank Outfall Drain which was built at a cost of Rs31 billion after obtaining loan from the World Bank. He said the project resulted into a disaster as it was constructed without considering the gravitational force.

He was of the view that without correcting designs of canals, the project of lining 4,000 watercourses would only benefit bureaucrats and contractors and not farmers. He suggested instead of lining watercourses, the government should spend the money on lining of canals.

He challenged the Sindh irrigation department to set an example of proper water supply and distribution of just one distributary, the Ghotana distributary in the Nasir division of the Rohri canal and two water channels it feed - the Tando Kaiser minor and the Bilori minor.

He said 90 per cent of Sindh's agriculture research carried out by the Agriculture Research Institute, Sindh Agriculture University, and the Nuclear Institute of Agriculture Research, Tandojam with an investment of millions of rupees, was on the Ghotana distributary.

Mr Nizamani called upon the government to consider ground realities before accusing farmers of stealing water who were the worst sufferers of water shortage. He said embankments of canals and distributaries have become weak because trees along their banks had been cut.

As a result, he said, breaches occur and water could not reach the tail-end. One way to strengthen the banks, he suggested, was to order the Sindh forest department to plant deep-rooted trees like rubber plant, banyan and acacia along the banks of waterways and order the irrigation staff to maintain and protect the plantation.

He said the irrigation department already had staff like Beldars employed to take care of banks of waterways. He claimed that there was no need for extra funds for tree protection.

He proposed that the government should take steps to discipline the irrigation staff mainly executive engineers and sub-divisional officers who remain absent from their offices most of the time.

He said complaints of water theft against farmers should be proved by irrigation officials in the court of law. He said if an accused farmer was found innocent and acquitted by the court then the official who registered that false complaint of theft should be dismissed from service.

Mr Nizamani demanded that Abyana (water charge) and other agricultural taxes should be reduced by half because farmers do not receive required quantity of irrigation water in Sindh. He demanded that farmers be provided loans with interest rates of lower than five per cent.