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Experts fear
further cut in Punjab water share
LAHORE- President Musharraf's recent directives relating to
irrigation water has alarmed Punjab farmers, and agricultural
experts fear further cut in the already curtailed share. A
presidential Note No. 392/DS(C-2)/2002 dated March 16, 2002
regarding the Sindh Canal System instructed the Ministry of
Environment to determine the minimum requirements of water
flow below the Kotri Barrage for protection of natural
environment.
Coordinator Punjab Water Council Hamid Malhi said Sindh
Government had admitted in the 1991 accord that it needed 10
MAF water annually for the purpose. He said barring two
drought years the water flowing into the sea averaged 40 MAF
per year. He said the evaluation should be made by an
independent agency or the recommendations might not be
accepted to other provinces.
In another directive the president has directed IRSA to
analyse the impact of providing extra 5000 cusec water to
Sindh from Punjab's share, during April/May as was done last
year 2001. IRSA was asked to submit its report by March 25. A
progressive farmer Farooq Bajwa said no analysis was
justified. He said Punjab was already facing a water shortage
of 44 per cent more than it had during the same period last
year. He said it was unjust to ask or pressurise Punjab to
sacrifice its water share this year too. He said 5000 cusec
water was enough to irrigate 40,000 acres of land per day.
He said Punjab farmers would not be able irrigate over one
million acre of land if 5000 cusec of water from its share was
given to Sindh for one month. Bajwa said the bias of IRSA was
evident from its recent decisions and it could not be trusted
to submit a fair and just report in this regard. The president
also wanted to know whether IRSA considered the sub-soil water
when it calculated distribution of water among provinces.
Majority of farmers and agriculturists has criticised the
directives. They said India also raised the same issue at the
time of negotiations on Indus Basin Water Treaty. However, the
World Bank overruled Indian objections stating that the
subsoil water was not an issue in distribution of river water.
Hamid Malhi said 70 percent water pumped by tubewells in
Punjab should not be overlooked. He said the same amount of
brackish water could be pumped from coastal regions of Sindh.
Moreover, he added, tubewell-pumped water was 10 times more
expensive than canal water,.thus it couldn't be equated with
canal or river water.
An agriculturist Ch Abdul Ghaffar said discriminations had
been made in federal government's treatment of agriculture in
Sindh and Punjab. He said Rs 10 billion had been allocated for
revamping of irrigation system in Sindh, while Punjab was
given nothing although its irrigation system also needed
similar repairs. He said the president had instructed to build
RBOD in Sindh, but there was no clear instruction about the
construction of Thal Canal in Punjab.
courtesy Daily The News , 6
April, 2002
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