Civil Society Flood Situation Report issued by Peoples Accountability Commissions on Floods (PACF) a forum of flood affected communities and volunteers here on Wednesday said that the government has completely failed in rehabilitation all the old waterways / Dhoras of Sindh and has delayed the completion of the rehabilitation of the embankments of LBOD and other drainage systems as a result, scale of the damages would be high in the case of heavy monsoon rains in 2012.
The report has warned that 62 percent of Sindh is without drainage due to encroachments on the old waterways / natural drainage systems. The report titled 'Situation of Protection Embankments and Natural Waterways in the Context of Anticipated Monsoon floods of 2012 in Sindh' was released in media by PACF members Professor Ismail Kumbhar, Taj Marri, Punhial Shario, Faheem Raza in a press conference held at Hyderabad Press Club.
They said that although Sindh government passed the Sindh Irrigation (Amendment) Act, 2011 to declare the encroachment on the waterways as criminal act, however government has completely failed in preparing any plan and allocating budget for the rehabilitation of these old waterways including removing the illegal encroachments from these Dhoras.
They said that the key old waterways of Sindh include Dhoro Puran, Suhni Dhoro, Digri Dohor, Bhai Khan Dhoro, Hakro Dhoro, Phithoro Dhoro, Naro Dhoro and other waterways. During the floods of 2011 due to encroachments on those waterways has resulted in heavy damages as a result of the rains and floods and flood water did not find its natural way and marooned hundreds of villages and towns.
They said that despite such destruction the government has only done lip service on this issue and has not prepared any plan for the rehabilitation of the waterways. According to the members of PACF, although Sindh government has initiated the plan of rehabilitation of the banks of LBOD and other drainage systems and the government was claiming that it the contractors would complete the work on 30th June 2012, however, there are two serious issues in this plan also.
One, the work on LBOD and other related drainage systems would not complete on the dateline and there are fears floods may hit again during the work in progress situation again damaging the work so far done. But the most serious issue related to this plan is that there has been no work on the remodelling of these drainage and work was only confined to the rehabilitation of their parts damaged during the floods of 2011.
While giving examples, PACF members said that the de-silting of drains of District Tando Muhammad Khan have not been done whereas in last year, the over topping of these drain lines had caused severe damages to the properties and lives of the people during 2011 heavy rains. Yet the plan should be prepared in view to avert such situation in coming expected monsoon 2012.
PACF members added that Dhoro Puran is a natural drain from Jhudo to Tando Bago taluka of Badin and had the capacity of 20,000 cusecs, but due to the illegal encroachment it is able to flow hundred cusecs of water. Once it had 300 feet bed but only 25 feet are free from the encroachments so it could not drain the rainwater.
Expressing their great concern over performance of Sindh irrigation department work being done on strengthen the vulnerable weak canals, dykes, they added that Rs 17 billion have been spent on repairing and plugged work on canals, dykes in 2010 flood affected and 2011 rain affected districts but still damaged canals and dykes are in a bad shape.
They said that due to the rains falls 2011, the network of LBOD system sustained so many DPOD and branch drains and yet all the breaches along LBOD spinal drain, KPOD, DPOD and branch drains have to yet to be restored and irrigation department expects to complete the work by June 30, 2012.
PACF members demanded of the government to prepare emergency plan including PC-I of rehabilitation of the old waterways and completely rehabilitate the waterways before 2012 monsoon season to save 62 percent of Sindh areas from flood devastation. They also demanded of the government to implement with letter and spirit the Sindh Irrigation (Amendment) Act, 2011 by formulating the rules and implementation mechanisms / clear roles and responsibilities of different agencies for this law.
They added that bund manual should be practised in letter and spirit to avoid the breaches. Long-term measures as installing the ring bunds should be adopted so that disaster prone situation can be averted. Third party validation should be made on the quality of work done on the irrigation system to avoid the corruption and vulnerably of the river floods. Co-ordination between the district administrations and irrigation department plus SIDA should be strengthened to identify the most vulnerable points.
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