LARKANA, July 10: The Sindh Abadgar Board (SAB) on Tuesday slammed the government’s decision to close down canals irrigating lands in the areas in rice belt and warned that it would devastate the newly sown paddy crop.

Gada Hussain Mahisar, central vice-president of the board, termed the decision ‘unwise’ in a statement to press and said that the first disaster struck growers in the shape of breaches and cuts made in dykes, which inundated hundreds of villages and ruined paddy crop on more than 500,000 acres.

The second disaster was about to strike them after the ‘incapable’ irrigation staff decided to close down the canals and branches, a step which might lead to destruction of standing and newly transplanted paddy crop in Upper Sindh, he said.

Mr Mahisar said in a letter to the Sindh chief minister and the minister for irrigation that release of water to the rice belt was already a month late for Kharif crop as the paddy sowing season would end on July 31.

He said that very recently the irrigation department drastically lowered water level in the Rice Canal causing negative impact on the paddy crop.