CONFLICTING estimates of cotton and paddy fields devastated by last year’s rains and floods in lower Sindh districts, many of which still remain inundated by rainwater, delayed the agriculture department’s plan to provide subsidy to growers for Kharif crops.

According to official sources, the estimates submitted by the Sindh Abadgar Board of the fields still uncultivable are spread over an area of 250,000 acres mainly in Thatta, Badin, Matli, Sujawal, Tando Mohammad Khan, Mirpurkhas, Sanghar, Tando Allahyar etc. However an official surveyor put the estimates at only 3,000 acres.

Secretary Agriculture has directed the concerned officials to make a fresh survey to reconcile the two divergent estimates and give a correct figure so that the government may plan subsidy for the affected farmers.

Sources said the department had some balance of urea stocks with the federal government left over from the last year’s subsidy operation which could be provided to the affected growers this year.

The department provided subsidy to affected farmers in the area during last Rabi season in the form of 50kg bags of wheat seeds, fertiliser and sunflower to each farmer whose fields were ruined by rains to help them start farming again.

According to a leading banana grower Maulvi Nazeer about 80 per cent of fields were still covered with stagnant water, while the irrigation department had cleared only 20 per cent area.

The irrigation department was facing shortage of pumps and was unable to carry out the job well ahead of Kharif sowing, mainly cotton, and paddy. In Matli subdivision the department had provided only two pumps to cover the area spread over thousands of acres and submerged in water.

Secretary Irrigtion recently visited Tandojam to see the progress of draining out of stagnant water from fields. The Sindh Abadgar Board Chairman Majeed Nizamani told the official that fields on about 250,000 acres in lower Sindh were uncultivable due to water-logging and salinity caused by last year’s rains. The Secretary Irrigation assured the growers that water from their fields would be drained out at the earliest so that they could sow cotton and paddy crops.

Despite high claims, the irrigation department does not have enough pumps and other equipments to drain out water from a large number of fields in lower Sindh, which comprises at least seven districts. There is also dearth of efficient workers in the department. Farm analysts wonder how the irrigation department, which could not drain out water from fields in one full year, could help the growers sow their crops in next one and a half month. The Kharif season has already started from March 15 and would last by end May/June when paddy crop would be cultivated.

Meanwhile, the Sindh Chamber of Agriculture has expressed concern over delay in clearing natural drains which take the flood water to the sea. The drains in lower Sindh and kaccha areas of the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) remain encroached by influential growers of the area. Houses have been built and tube-wells and storage rooms set up on the drains reserved for taking excess water from the fields to the sea. The blockade of these drains had caused heavy destruction to standing crops last year when water unable to find its way to the sea had inundated fields in the area.

The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture maintained that the Sindh Assembly had already passed a bill for removal of encroachment from natural drains. He feared that an unprecedented catastrophe bigger than last year is due to fall on the area if the drains were not cleared before the start of monsoon by July 15.

Late sowing: Meanwhile, a leading grower Nabi Bux Sathio has complained of water shortage from Kotri Barrage which has resulted in slow sowing of early Kharif crops - chilly and cotton. He said sowing which started on March 15 should have covered 60 to 70 per cent areas by now, but so far only 30 per cent sowing has been completed.

While sowing of cotton is far from completion, the time of paddy cultivation which required far more water than cotton and chilly was approaching fast, he said.

It may be pointed out that the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) has announced 15 per cent water shortage for the provinces during the Kharif season. If water supply does not become normal cotton and paddy growers, who are already suffering from last year’s losses, would be financially ruined.