Two more gates of Sukkur Barrage will be replaced by June

Having lived through the spectre of being closed for some months last year, drying up water supplies in major parts of Sindh, 14 of some 56 colossal gates of the Indus River's Sukkur barrage have been replaced so far. The Sindh Irrigation Minister Jam Khan Shoro told a press conference in Sukkur on Sunday that by the end of June the local and foreign engineers will replace another two gates while the rest of the 40 gates will be changed over the next two years.

In June, 2024, a gate of the barrage had collapsed and at least six were damaged, suggesting massive erosion and necessitating urgent rehabilitation of the barrage which was built almost a century ago by 1932. "The barrage's infrastructure is still sturdy and it can go for another 100 years," claimed Shoro. "Only some of its gates were damaged last year."

According to him, since the collapse of a gate in June, 2024, the engineers set a target of changing 16 gates by fiscal 2024-25. The minister said for the first time in 100 years the barrage's infrastructure, specially its gates became exposed before the engineers.

He added that the experts tested those gates with advanced equipment and machines and fortunately it emerged that no major damage was caused to these gates even in a long period of 100 years. "This [barrage] is a significant and historical marvel of engineering." He told that the replaced gates can survive for at least three decades if not for another century.

He said thanks to the rehab, the modern technology has been merged with the early 20th century engineering infrastructure to make the barrage more robust. He apprised that the engineers have reduced weight of each of the replaced gate by around 80 tons. Shoro expected that by the end of the three-year project of changing 56 out of the total 66 gates of the barrage, between 3,400 tons to 3,500 tons would become reduced from the gates which are also being mechanized. A total of 66 gates were built in the barrage but 10 of them were closed in the couple years which following its commissioning.

The minister praised the local engineers and experts for their hard work in tandem with the foreigners to make the project's timely completion possible. He recalled that when one of the gates had fallen last year, the standard operating procedures (SOPs) called for suspending water supply in the Indus to undertake the repair works which could have taken months.

Seven canals spring from the barrage and from its downstream water flows towards the Kotri barrage, the last engineering structure before the river meets the sea. Four canals off-take from Kotri, supplying water to Karachi, Hyderabad and other districts. Shoro said the barrage's closure by stopping its water supply from Tarbela Dam could have dried up almost entire Sindh but the engineers ensured that the barrage remained functional as they erected a temporary dam, called kafir dam.

He asserted that with the help of the same expertise the problems of the Kirthar and Rice Canals, which supply water to Balochistan, Dadu and Larkana, which have also sustained for many decades will also be resolved. Responding to a question, he said the Sindh government is already fighting its case before the Council of Common Interests (CCI) and the Indus River System Authority (IRSA) with regard to the water shortage.

He reiterated that the provincial government's stance has been that shortage should be equally shared among the provinces as per the 1991 Water Apportionment Accord. He expressed hope that Sindh will convince the CCI over the shortfall issue in the same way through which it fought the case against construction of new canals on the Indus.