Hyderabad:
Several months of protests, wrapping every corner and corner of Sindh, eventually they have forced the provincial government to write a letter to convene the very delayed meeting of the Common Interests Council (CCI) to discuss the hot topic of the construction of channels.
The main secretary of Sindh, Asif Hyder Shah, in a letter last week not only looked for a CCI meeting, but also requested the water availability certificate issued by the authority of the Indo River System (IRSA) for the Cholistan channel.
“The Province of Sindh has serious reservations on the granting of the IRSA certificate … since the matter does not fall under the scope of the water distribution agreement, 1991, therefore beyond the scope of IRSA,” he wrote. “It has become a proven fact that all provinces are currently suffering a sharp shortage of water.”
He pointed out that Sindh is the lower riverside province supports more than 50 percent of water shortage during the first Kharif sowing seasons. He referred to IRSA data that calculated a water deficit of 16.6 percent throughout the country. “… The data clearly indicates that sufficient water is not available in the system, therefore, the issuance of the certificate for new channels is unjustifiable.”
The CS referred to paragraph 14 (d) of the 1991 agreement to affirm that although a province can “modify” the participation of water among the existing channels, new channel systems cannot be built. According to him, Punjab already possessed the capacity of the irrigation network to extract water from the Indo River beyond its authorized participation.
The CS argued that these assignments can never be determined according to the agreement up to and, unless the release of the river water to the sea is finalized in the flood of Kotri downstream.
As a consequence, the Kotri River downstream remains dry for most of the year, destroying the Indo Delta. “The new channel system cannot be designed in flood flows, as they are uncertain,” Shah said. He compared the water discharge figures from 1976 to 1998 and from 1999 to 2022 to point out that the average annual discharge in the Kotri downstream to the sea was reduced in 26.67 MAF.
The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council, at its meeting on February 7, 2024, had mandatory to seek the approval of the CCI among the provinces for irrigation projects that are built under the development of the National Irrigation Network for the Green Pakistan initiative. “The IRSA’s decision for the issuance of NOC before the consensus of the provinces on the project and the approval of the ICC is also against the spirit of Ecnec’s decision.”
