HYDERABAD: Sindh Irrigation Minister Sohail Anwer Siyal said that IRSA was constantly doing injustice to Sindh and Sindh was not given its due share of water. He said that Federal government and its ministers were misleading the public by presenting incorrect figures of water distribution.
He was talking to media persons at the office of Chief Engineer Kotri Barrage in Jamshoro regarding water shortage in Sindh on Thursday.
He informed that Sindh was being given 35 percent less water while Punjab was facing only 2.8 percent water shortage. He said that a conspiracy was being hatched to create rift between Sindh and Balochistan by giving 200 percent more water to Balochistan.
He said that water was being supplied to Sindh from different canals and sometimes from Mangla Dam on intervals so that correct figures could not be collected.
He said that 530 cusecs of water from Kotri Barrage had to be given to Karachi for drinking while at present 1200 cusecs of water was being supplied to Karachi and under the Water Act this shortage had to be fulfilled by the federal government.
“Ironically, under the water agreement, Sindh is being given 517,000 acre-feet less water, which could have irrigated at least 250,000 acres of land in Sindh while Punjab should have been given 10.282 water and they were getting 10.535 water which is 253,000 acre feet more,” he said.
He said that Sindh Government had provided water for rice cultivation in Badin on May 20 last year and now unfortunately even drinking water was not available in Badin District, a minister from Badin despite part of the federal cabinet did not speak on the issue of Badin.
He said that not only the Federal Minister but also the members of the National Assembly from Karachi and the Governor of Sindh had not uttered a single word regarding injustice to Sindh on its water share till to date.
He said that due to this incompetent federal government, there was a shortage of sugar, rice and wheat in the country. He expressed his fear that if the water shortage continued this year, the cotton crop would also get affected.
Sial said that even today a federal minister has tweeted that if the Kala Bagh dam had been built, there would have been no water shortage, such statements only creates hatred among the provinces as water was not enough to even fill available dams in the country, he added.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021