The wheat crop in Sindh is facing acute shortage of irrigation water and the growers said they fear serious damage if the required quantity of water is not made available to their crops, it is learnt. Further, the poor growers of different districts of the province have not taken any measure to start sowing of the crop so far, sources told Business Recorder here.
According to Sindh's crop schedule, the sowing of wheat crop begins from November 1 to 20 in various districts including Benazirabad, Sanghar, Mirpurkhas, Hyderabad, Tharparkar, Badin, Thatta and Dadu, while in Jacobabad, Shikarpur, Larkana, Sukkur, Ghotki, Khairpur and Naushehro Feroz crop is sown from November 7 to December 30.
The growers have not so far made arrangements to start sowing the crop in almost all districts, they said, adding that the farmers of Thatta, Badin and Mirpurkhas were fearing huge financial loss due to shortage of irrigation water at Korti downstream.
The best time of sowing for early planting varieties starts from the first week of November where as the late planting varieties period commence from last week of November till mid of December and the crop's harvesting begins in March and May, they added.
The crop is cultivated on around 80,000 acres of land and if the growers are not provided with enough irrigation water, more than 85,000 families would face serious financial damages, sources said and added that the water discharge from the Kotri Barrage to these districts has been reduced due to overall shortage in Sindh.
Moreover, the water discharge in Johi canal is not satisfactory for past couple of months and hundreds of cultivable agricultural lands have been dried up and the growers are facing financial constraints. Many complaints against the irrigation officials have also been received from the growers of Dadu and Johi canals of tampering water flows, they said.
Sources said that Bagh, Qubo and Dhori, Saifullah Magsi branches of Kamber-Shahdadkot had completely dried up, rendering thousands of acres of fertile land into barren. The major cause of drying up of canals and watercourses are lack of proper monitoring, diverting water and illegal use of suction pumps. No de-silting of water channels and watercourses had been carried out for a couple of years, resulting in reduction in supply of irrigation water, sources added.