Balochistan accuses Sindh of stealing its water

Irsa told Balochistan got 50% less water than demanded

ISLAMABAD: Balochistan on Wednesday accused Sindh of stealing its share of water that is causing severe shortage of the precious resource in the less developed federating unit.

Member of the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) (Balochistan) Muhammad Naseem Bazai lodged the complaint during a meeting of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Water and Power. He said the province is getting less water than its needs, adding that Sindh is stealing about 6,000 to 7,000 cusecs of water from what the authority allocates to the province.

The committee met here with MNA Muhammad Arshad Khan Leghari in the chair. Bazai said since 1991 to 2014, Balochistan got almost 50% less water than it demanded that resulted in losses of around Rs93 billion to the province.



MNA Nawab Muhammad Yousuf Talpur told the committee that due to water shortage, around five million acres of land in Sindh has turned barren that inflicted losses to the tune of tens of billions of rupees on the province.

Irsa chairman Rao Irshad Ali Khan, while briefing the committee, ruled out the impression that provinces, especially Balochistan, are being allocated less water. He said no discrimination is being made in the distribution of water among the four federating units and “if we have ample water supply we also increase the water share of the provinces”.

This year Sindh has been given 15% more water than the preceding year. Likewise, all provinces have been given above their allocated quota due to the availability of excess water in the country.

He added that since 1992 to 2016, on average Sindh got 6% less water than its share and Punjab (9%) while Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa received more than its share of water whereas Balochistan has got only 60% of its share.

Moreover, officials of Distribution Companies (DISCOs) operating in Sindh and elected representatives from the province also accused each other of not cooperating in reducing power theft and other irregularities in the power distribution system in the province.



The committee adopted the report prepared by its subcommittee on “the performance of DISCOs of Sindh” and expressed its concern over the non-cooperative attitude of the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (HESCO) and Sukkur Electric Power Company (SEPCO).

The panel also directed the Ministry of Water and Power to address the issues identified by the subcommittee and submit its compliance report within 15 days.

Water and Power Additional Secretary Umar Rasool told the committee that the issue of overbilling would be resolved by the start of 2017.

“We are set to implement the mobile meter-reading system across the country, but meter readers were the main hurdle in implementing this digital reading process,” Rasool said and added, “Many meter-readers have been laid off from different DISCOs that were organising resistance to this digital reading process.”

He told the committee that the digital metre reading process has been implemented on 88% LESCO consumers, 90% FESCO consumers, 90% MEPCO consumers and 90% in Islamabad (IESCO).

Published in The Express Tribune, September 22^nd, 2016.