Managing drought in Thar

There is no dedicated organisation at govt level that caters to range of issues faced by the arid regions of Sindh.

Tharparkar is facing drought-like conditions this year because of erratic rainfall during the previous monsoon season. Last year, some parts of the Tharparkar region received no monsoon rain in July and August, whereas other parts received sporadic showers. In Sindhi, the famous proverb attributed to this condition says that “If it rains, then it is Thar, otherwise it’s wasteland.” Most areas of Tharparkar district are facing a drought-like situation and a number of people have died along with the loss of livestock –– the only asset of Thari people. The Sindh relief department declared the entire Tharparkar district, except for a few areas, ‘calamity affected area’ on February 28, 2014, instead of on August 15, 2013. The report on the status of the Millennium Development Goals tells us that among the districts in Sindh, caloric poverty level is the highest in rural Tharparkar, where about two-thirds of the population is found to fall below the caloric poverty line or suffer from food insecurity. The livelihood of people in Thar is dependent on monsoon rainfall, but the monsoon pattern has changed due to climate change.

The level of deprivation in Tharparkar far outstrips that in other districts of Sindh. In the district, out of 166 dehs only nine are located in the command area of a barrage, while the rest of the 157 dehs are in the desert where people mostly depend upon rains to feed their livestock and food. The drought has also lowered the underground water level drastically. About 92 per cent of people depend on livestock and rain-fed agriculture, which solely depends on monsoon rains. Due to the fragile nature of the agro ecosystem, even a minor drought causes heavy damages in terms of crop failure and livestock losses. There is no long-term drought mitigation strategy in place, and in the event of drought, relief measures, no matter how large-scale they are, cannot meet the demand of a large population. Similar drought conditions also prevail in Nara in district Sanghar and Khairpur, besides Kohistan located in Thatta and Jamshoro districts and Kacho in Dadu district.

The arid zones of Sindh represent 17 per cent of the arid land of Pakistan and can be classified as subtropical desert. They cover an area of over 68,000 sq kms of the province and can be roughly divided into three even-sized distinct regions of Thar, Nara and Kohistan. Ironically, there is no dedicated organisation at the government level that caters to the range of issues faced by the arid regions of Sindh. Though the Sindh Arid Zone Development Authority was established to address the problems faced by arid zones, it had been abandoned long ago. There is neither any research undertaken nor any extension services available to the farmers with regard to arid agriculture, livestock and water resource management. This gap needs to be filled and new techniques and knowledge needs to be disseminated to the people to effectively tackle the challenges of climate-induced drought and other hazards. The government should establish a permanent national drought fund to finance its obligations of food security, agriculture and livestock development and water supply in drought-hit areas. Every time, while responding to drought, the federal and provincial governments collectively spend billions of rupees to address the immediate needs of drought-affected people by supplying wheat, cash money and water along with fodder for their livestock. However, it is imperative that in addition to emergency relief operations, the government should also invest in long-term planning for the development of arid areas, which are highly vulnerable to droughts.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 16^th, 2014.

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