IRSA consent for power plant has Sindh up in arms

Sindh govt to lodge protest against federation for allowing construction of hydropower project on Chashma-Jhelum canal

KARACHI: The Sindh government has decided to lodge a protest against the Indus River System Authority (IRSA) for approving the construction of a hydropower plant on the controversial Chashma-Jhelum (CJ) Link Canal.

According to sources privy to the development, the Sindh government will take up the issue in the cabinet meeting scheduled for Tuesday at the Sindh Secretariat.

The province’s authorities have already been protesting against the federal body’s role in releasing water in the canal throughout the year rather than just times of floods.

“Sindh is already facing a severe water crisis. We will not let anyone build a power plant on the Chashma-Jhelum canal,” Sindh Agriculture Minister Ismail Rahu told The Express Tribune.

“How can IRSA give approval to a matter beyond its mandate? It must be decided by the Council of Common Interests (CCI),” said Sindh Irrigation Secretary Saeed Ahmed Mangnejo while vowing to protest the move at every forum.

The issue came to the fore on Friday after IRSA ignored the reservations of its member for Sindh and granted a no-objection certificate (NOC) to a hydropower company for constructing the plant. Construction of the plant is estimated to cost $59 million and is planned to be completed in three years.

“The decision regarding the construction of power plant on CJ Link Canal was made with the majority vote of Punjab, Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and a member of federal government at a meeting held on October 17,” read the IRSA notification issued in this regard.

“The IRSA member from Sindh dissented on the basis that the CJ Link Canal is an inter-provincial canal and the matter does not come under purview of IRSA. However, IRSA does not commit or guarantee any water release exclusively for power generation,” it added.

“This exact project was also proposed in 2009, but the then PPP government at the centre resisted it. Now, the project has been taken up again and certain quarters want to expedite it,” an official familiar with the matter told The Express Tribune.

He added that the next move after the plant is constructed would be to change the CJ canal’s status from non-perennial to perennial.

This would mean that it would be legal to let water flow constantly through the canal, which has a discharge capacity of 615 cubic metres per second.

Referring to the IRSA Act, former Sindh advocate general Barrister Zamir Ghumro argued that the federal body has no authority to grant any NOC to the Punjab government for power generation projects. “Such issues are dealt by the inter-provincial coordination department and the CCI. No one can take the decision without taking the Sindh government into confidence,” he said.

The Sindh agriculture minister, meanwhile, called it “another conspiracy to trigger a tussle between Sindh and Punjab over water.”

He said Punjab had already diverted a huge amount of water from the Indus through different canals. He appealed to all parties in Sindh to take notice of the issue. “We will all suffer if the CJ canal is given perennial status,” he warned.

IRSA spokesperson Khalid Idrees, in his news conference on Friday, insisted that the move would not jeopardise Sindh in anyway. “Sindh’s share won’t be reduced. The plant will use Punjab’s share,” he said.