Sindh to miss wheat harvest target

Federal and provincial governments to ensure that the province is provided with its share of water.

HYDERABAD: Sindh is expected to fall 25 per cent short of its wheat harvest target for the current year after the province received less than its due share of water for Rabi crops.

A meeting of the Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA), presided over by its President Dr Syed Nadeem Qamar, took note of the matter and called upon the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) and the federal and provincial governments to ensure that the province was provided with its share of water.

Participants of the meeting also protested over the release of toxic water from Manchar Lake into Indus at a time when the river flow was ebbing. “With the increasing quantity of toxic content in the river, water is rapidly becoming harmful for human consumption,” it observed.

They also expressed concern over the delay in the rehabilitation of embankments and canals damaged by the floods. They claimed that growers of sub-divisions obtaining water from the Rohri and Nara canals would suffer financial losses in case the irrigation infrastructure was not restored before the Kharif season.

The participants added that the sugarcane crop was also in danger if the province continued to receive reduced water supply from Irsa.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 5^th, 2011.