Sindh government has decided to ban the cultivation of rice in command areas of left bank canals of River Indus. The provincial government would change the relevant laws to toughen punishments that include six-month imprisonment and a penalty ranging from Rs 0.5 to Rs 2m, depending on the nature of violation of the ban.
The move, an official statement said, was aimed at controlling the growing water-logging and salinity. The decision was taken at a high-level meeting held here on Saturday at the CM House under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah. The meeting was attended by Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly, Syed Khursheed Shah, MNA Asghar Shah, MPAs Sardar Imdad Ali Pitafi, Murad Ali Shah, Syed Sarfraz Shah, Senior Member Board of Revenue Shahid Gulzar Shaikh, Secretary Irrigation, Commissioners of Sukkur, Mirpurkhas and Shaheed Benazirabad divisions and deputy commissioners of the districts, situated on the left bank of River Indus.
The chief minister told the meeting that water shortage continued to persist at tail end as the perennial canals' off-take from Guddu, Sukkur and kotri barrages have a very lengthy command area of more than 150 to 350 kilometers. "These canals are meant for dry kharif crops. But, cultivation of rice in the command areas of these canals have further aggravated water shortage because paddy crop requires heavy water dozes," he said.
Shah said as a result, sub-soil water level has risen, bringing water-logging and salinity issues to a dangerous proportion, besides destroying the entire green-belt of left bank of River Indus. Khursheed Shah said that need of the hour was to change crop pattern, otherwise entire left bank strip of the province would turn into fish ponds and lakes of saline water and human settlements would vanish away if cultivation of rice was allowed further.
MPA Pitafi said climatically Sindh had a distinction of cultivating early kharif crops, but Irrigation department releases water in the concerned canals and distributaries very late, therefore growers are left with no choice but to grow rice. "Rice cultivation is easy and it does not require hard labour and extra care, that is why the growers prefer to cultivate rice," he said.
MNA Syed Sarfraz Shah, MPAs Syed Murad Ali Shah and Nasir Shah, being growers of the left bank command areas, said the growing water-logging had destroyed standing fruit orchards. "If the cultivation of rice is not banned in the command areas of the left bank of River Indus the concept of good agricultural lands would dwindle away," they said. The chief minister said the problems of command area of perennial channels has once again become a menace and was surfacing, specially in the command areas of Ghotki feeder canal system, Rohri canal system, Nara canal system, Khairpur feeder (East) system and Khairpur feeder (West) system.
"The Sindh government has incurred heavy expenditures of millions of rupees on the installation, maintenance and operation of tube-wells to control water table, but it again increased with cultivation of rice and this crop also causes serious water shortage at the tail end," he said. Shah also pointed out that the Sindh government has already imposed ban on cultivation of dry crops into paddy crops on January 2, 1999. He directed Senior Member Board of Revenue Shahid Gulzar Shaikh to formally notify the ban which, he said, the concerned commissioners must implement at any cost.
The chief minister also directed the secretary (Law) and senior member Board of Revenue to initiate legislation to enhance punishment and penalty which must come to at least six months imprisonment and penalty of Rs 0.5 to Rs 2m for violation of the ban. He also directed Agriculture department to take necessary measures to inform the growers about the government's decision and guide them to switch over to other low deltaic crops.