Agricultural losses: Tail-end growers seek SC help in plugging ‘illegal’ water outlets

Sindh Abadgar Association says outlets are serving fields owned by influential landlords, politicians.

ISLAMABAD:

Tail-end farmers from Sindh’s Badin District are concerned about the agricultural losses that may be incurred due to ‘illegal’ water outlets grafted from a canal and are looking to the Supreme Court for help.

Since September 3, around 80 members of the Sindh Abadgar Association from Badin’s sub-division Khairpur-Gamboh have been sitting in a protest camp outside the National Press Club in Islamabad.

They want the apex court to take notice of the inequitable distribution of water, which benefits feudal lords but adversely affects the livelihood of growers in Sindh.

The growers have accused Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah of using his discretionary powers in the past five years to remove 16 direct outlets from Naseer Canal, which flows out of Rohri Canal from Sukkur Barrage.

“Because of the removal of these outlets, water has dried up at the tail-end, affecting 10 canals that are used for agricultural and drinking purposes in Khairpur-Gamboh,” said Tariq Mehmood, the association’s general secretary. “Our farmlands have been destroyed because there is no water.”



The growers claim crops planted across around 66,000 acres of land have been destroyed, due to which they have incurred billions of rupees in losses. Around 80,000 people in the area are facing an acute shortage of drinking water, for which they rely on the canal, they added.

Most of the growers who cultivated cotton and wheat on their land said they have now been forced to sell wood or work in factories on daily wages.

Mehmood said the outlets are serving fields owned by influential landlords and politicians.

“Water is being used as a political payoff in Sindh,” he said.

The growers alleged the outlets are in violation of Sindh’s Irrigation Act.

“The act only permits smaller canals to be taken out of the main canal, not direct outlets,” Mehmood said. “The smaller canals are regulated, but the direct outlets force a high pressure flow of water through them, reducing water supply downstream.”

Some of the outlets discharge 15 to 20 cusecs of water even though the act only permits that one to two cusecs be discharged, according to the association.

The association’s representatives said they had decided to come to Islamabad after exhausting all protest options in Sindh.

The association’s president, Pir Fayaz Rashdi, said they went on a hunger strike during Ramazan in 2012 in Malkani — where the association is headquartered — which led to some temporary relief. In April, Rashdi added, the growers marched 150 kilometres from Malkani to Hyderabad and started a sit-in protest outside Badin Jail on June 3, 2012, which continued for 70 days.

He said they ended the sit-in after the chief minister promised them the water would be provided to the tail-end growers. But the promises turned out to be hollow and no actual steps were taken to help the growers, Rashdi said.

“We have lost hope in the provincial government,” he said. “Now our appeal is to the Supreme Court to take suo motu notice of our woes.”

Around a year ago, Ghulam Rasool Sehto, a labour leader who is also the Sindh Hari Committee president, went on a 122-day hunger strike in the capital over the same tail-end water issue in Sindh.

His strike ended after leader from the then-ruling Pakistan Peoples Party — Aitzaz Ahsan and Zamarud Khan — intervened, resulting in some respite. But the hunger strike did not completely resolve the problem, Mehmood said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 10^th, 2013.