KARACHI: Sindh Minister for Irrigation Department Jam Khan Shoro has said that Sindh province was being faced severe water scarcity and Irsa is not supplying its due water share to Sindh province by implementing on the 1991 agreement resulted accute water shortage would be created in Balochistan, Rice Canal and Dadu Canals while due to non-discharge of water, sea intrusion has also been chipped away 2.2 to 3.2 million acres of agricultural land of Sindh province. He said that billions of rupees of Sindh government has been wasted due to wrong planning of LBOD & RBOD projects. LBOD project was built during the tenure of General Zia ul Haq which is causing of severe damages and losses during the heavy rains in Badin, Tharparkar and Mirpurkhas districts and also has distrubed the natural ways of water bodies. Keeping this in view, Sindh Irrigation department made a strategy of starting work on water lining of canals in the province and more than 3200 kilometers of different water lining of canals work have been completed by Sindh Irrigation department during the period of 2008 to till date. This he said while holding a joint press conference with province minister information and labour Saeed Ghani at committee room, Sindh Assembly building heron today. While briefing about the performance and annual development projects of his department, he informed that 15 lining of the canals development projects have been completed out of 16 while the work on different lining of canals is underway which will covers 509 kilometers. He informed that there were 138 annual development schmes in the water and drainage sector out of them 84 are likely to be completed at the end of the financial year. He added that 04 development project of Tharcoal with the cost of 546 billion would also be likely to be completed and out of 7 development schemes of matching allocation, 5 would be be completed in the next year. He informed that a development scheme under PSDD was started by former president Asif Ali Zardari and 109 different water channels would be constructed according to this scheme, but 56 water channel were completed by Sindh Government while the ongoing work on 32 water channels has stopped by PTI government due to non-availability of funds and there are 21 schmes of water channels on which the federal government is not interested to work or release budget. Provincial Minister, Jam Khan Shoro further said that 44 small dams have been completed while 15 other dams are under construction phase in order to overcome water scarcity in Tharparkar Kachho and in other arid zones. Jam Khan Shoro said Sindh Irrigation department is working on three development projects including rehabilitation of Sukkhur and Guddu barrages under the Sindh Barrages improvements program with the financial support of World Bank. He added that Sindh Resilience & SWAT are other two development projects of world bank and under the Sindh Resilience program,09 embankments of Indus River have strengthened and Rehabilitated while construction of 14 small dams is also underway which is likely to be completed in current financial year.
