BADIN, July 17: The irrigation system in Sindh cannot be improved unless officials of the department stop transferring lands from command area of one barrage or waterway to another and ensure adequate water supply to farmers.

A survey conducted by this correspondent on Friday revealed that mismanagement, corruption and negligence by the officials were the causes for the unfair distribution of water in the province, particularly in the Badin district.

Influential landlords when do not get excess water from their original watercourses manage to shift their lands to command areas of other watercourses, leaving farmers, whose lands are fed by the watercourses, short of water.

Reports say the landlords after changing their waterways receive water from both sources.

According to procedure, irrigation officers have to make revised module statements (RMS) and keep proper gauges of modules after shifting lands, provided the area under transfer was above 10 acres. However, this practice has vanished as the process of RMS does not start until khatedars concerned move an application to the irrigation office for making RMS.

In past, irrigation officials did not shift lands without obtaining affidavits, duly attested by mukhtiarkars who had magisterial powers, from khatedars that they will not object to the transfer of further area to their watercourses. But this process is also not being followed now as revenue officials' magisterial powers have been done away with and irrigation officials are reluctant to bring khatedars before civil judges for the purpose.

A land owner, Hamid Khan, said many areas had been shifted from one watercourse to another, with the result influential people's lands receive excess water.

Ali Akbar Khan, a landlord of Deh Kamaro, said different areas were facing water shortage due to transfer of lands from one waterway to another without preparing RMS.

When contacted, Phulelli Canal sub-division assistant engineer Shamsuddin Nizamani said module discharge for 70 acres was one cusec of water. He said arrangements had been made to control wastage of water, adding that water supply to fish ponds and drains had been stopped.

When his attention was drawn to the fact that at least 140,000 acres of land had been transferred to the Kotri Barrage command area but the barrage had been denied its water share, the official said it was for the government to transfer water source with shifting of area.

Some 15 khatedars, who get water from watercourse no. 26-R, Mari Wasayo, said complained that they received less water from this source. They said they had been asking irrigation authorities to transfer lands of some khatedars to other watercourses but their requests had been turned down.

They regretted that the executive engineer, Gunni Canal division, Tando Mohammad Khan, had shifted more than 100 acres of eight influential landlords to their watercourse without consent of original khatedars, who already faced shortage of water. They said the eight landlords received water from the Nukerji Distributary.

The executive engineer, Zaheer Haider Shah, could not be contacted for his version. The director, Sida, Nazeer Mughal, was in Karachi for a meeting with the irrigation minister.

The assistant engineer of the Gunni sub-division, Golarchi, Abdul Ghafoor Mandhor, denied that the water source of eight khatedars had been transferred from the Nukerji Distributary to the Mari Wasayo. However, he said the executive engineer had granted a share list to the khatedars in 2000 in lieu of entries available in the Karai register, mentioning that sanctioned water to their lands had been adjusted to watercourse no. 26-R, Mari Wasayo.

When asked whether the influential khatedars were receiving water from the Nukerji Distributary or any other watercourse, he said he had no information about it. He, however, said according to the kathedars their lands remained uncultivated.

Small growers of the watercourse demanded that the chief minister and other higher authorities should initiate an impartial inquiry into the matter.