MULTAN, March 21: The Pakistan Seraiki Party (PSP) will launch a movement against what it termed ‘selfish and narrow-minded Sindhi leadership which has deprived the Seraiki belt of its water share’.
This was stated by PSP chief Barrister Taj Muhammad Langah at a press conference here on Wednesday.
The PSP chief said the Sindhi nationalist leaders always exploited the so-called Sindh card to get undue favours especially on the issue of water distribution.
He said the Seraiki Party would organize seminars, protest processions and public meetings to apprise Seraiki people of the conspiracy against them.
He called for public support on the issue and urged other political parties to join hands to fight for the rights of the Seraiki.
Tracing the history of the water dispute, Mr Langah said after handing over the rights of rivers Satluj, Ravi and Bias to India under the Sindh-Tas agreement, the government of Pakistan envisaged the Indus basin replacement project with the help of the World Bank. Consequently, he said two replacement dams, Mangla and Tarbela, were constructed on the Chenab and Indus, respectively.
As the three rivers handed over to India had mainly flowed in the Seraiki belt, he said the then government started supplying water to this area through Chashma-Jhelum link canal and Taunsa-Punjnad link canal, the offshoots of Tarbela dam.
It was decided that 4.2 maf (million acre feet) water would be supplied to the area, he said. However, when the Tarbela dam was being designed, the world bank suggested that it could provide water up to 9.3 maf instead of 4.2, he added.
The idea behind the proposal was to store 5.1 maf extra water to be supplied to other provinces, he said, adding the income from the extra water of 5.1 maf was decided to be spent in south Punjab for the repairs of the two link canals and to fight the problem of water-logging and salinity. It was also decided that the income would be spent on construction of Kalabagh and Bhasha dams, he said.
The PSP chief said Sindh started getting three maf water from Tarbela through Taunsa-Punjnad Canal while 1.5 maf water was decided to be supplied to NWFP and Balochistan. At least 25 per cent of water usage increased in Sindh which resulted in water-logging in the province, he said.
He maintained on an average Sindh got four feet water per acre while Seraiki area got two feet per acre.
The Seraiki area produced 80 per cent of the country’s cotton and 50 per cent wheat in the Punjab which was more than 75 per cent of the wheat production of Sindh province.
He claimed the sub-soil water in Sindh was found five feet below the surface while in Seraiki area it was 60 feet below and it further went down by a foot every year.
As a heartland of the country’s agro-based economy, he said the Seraiki area needed 6 maf water, fearing the area would become barren, if the required quantity was not ensured before 2010.
Mr Langah alleged Sindh wrongly demanded share in water resources assuming 114 maf, which was the yardstick of water distribution in case of excessive water resources in the country.
He demanded that no shortage of water should be occurred in the two link canals that irrigate the Seraiki belt, development dams on the river Indus, construction of greater Thal canal and representation of Seraiki area on Indus River System Authority (IRSA) and Punjab water council.