HYDERABAD: The River Indus water has yet not reached Indus Delta, its ultimate destination, striking fear among hundreds and thousands of residents of the coastal areas of Sindh about their survival.
This betrayal has drowned in dismay the delta-dwelling farmers, who usually celebrated the arrival of fresh water in early April or in May, June. This is second year in a row the farmers could not get water to cultivate both winter and summer crops.
During the previous year (2017) the rains and canal water both blessed the coastal farmers after six months’ wait in the first week of June. The farmers then cultivated vegetables, cucumber, tomato, chilli, coriander, and tried to recover losses suffered during the period. But this year again they are facing uncertainty due to water scarcity. They have lost winter crops and are now facing difficulties to cultivate summer crops till the month of August.
This is tomato and chilli cultivation time. Farmers in the coastal areas of three districts Thatta, Sujawal, and Badin cultivate tomato and chilli largely. These crops provide source of living to a large number of people.
Information gathered from the areas reveals that several farmers, as usual, have developed nurseries and prepared lands for the next immediate crops of both the crops, but due to lingering water scarcity is holding them back.
Aijaz Shah, a landholder in Shah Bunder, Sujawal district, says his family has invested more than Rs500,000 initially on developing nurseries of tomato and chilli and land preparation.
“Further, we purchased hybrid seeds of tomato and chilli at Rs5000 per kilogram as we are no longer in practice of preserving local seeds,” Shah said.
Besides this, he added, they also have to invest on the use of farming machinery, labour, water, and chemical input for the both key crops, but this year they seem to be out of options as far as the use of ready seedlings was concerned.
“These seedlings need to be transplanted within 25-30 days, depending on care and availability of water. A delay will only deal more losses to farmers. In this situation uncertainty is looming over there,” Shah said expressing concern.
Influential farmers following traditional practices had installed tube wells as an alternative to have irrigation water but this time they found that underground water itself has tuned brackish and is not fit for humans, livestock, and agriculture.
Some farmers point out that it is an artificial shortage of water, as influential people have established commercial fish farms in the area. They take canal water for fish ponds illegally, depriving farmers of their share.
Gulab Shah, another grower of Keti Bunder area said on average each fish farm is spread over 400--1000 acres of land, which was earlier fertile for agriculture, producing food and cash crops.
"About seven-eight years back, left with no option because of shrinking agriculture, locals were forced to sell their precious lands to fish farmers for peanuts. Now around 50,000-60,000 acres land is under fish farms in Thatta coastal region alone," he said.
Shah said the coastal farmers take water from Odero branch, a distributary of Kalri Baghar (KB) Feeder and ironically many fish farms were located near the reach of this water source.
“Banana and betel nut farming (paan) once major crops in the coastal belt have now been damaged badly due to eight-month long uncertainty of water in irrigation system,” said Shah.
The farmers say they are in trouble as artificial lakes in the fertile agriculture lands are causing salinity all around.
Farming elders believe that this current water crisis followed the 2010 River Indus floods, which devastated many areas of the province and caused losses to fragile agriculture sector. Coastal area farmers are paying the price of the faulty policies of the government, which has failed to resolve the problems.
The communities, including fishermen and farmers, residing along provincial coastline depend on the river water for their natural sources of livelihoods. Fishermen take fresh river water as blessing to have more catch of fish, especially the precious marine species palla, which travels from sea into upstream river through creeks for breeding during the monsoon season, May, June, July, and August.
Around 300,000 fishermen residing along the natural route of the river from Kotri downstream to the deltaic region depend on fish catch directly or indirectly and enjoy more earning. Apart from this, a large number of islander families also depend on fresh water, which streams during the monsoon season. In case of receding river water, they have to spend more share of daily earning to buy water from jetties for domestic use.
Reports show that the sea has encroached on over three million acres of fertile land because of disruption in the river Indus flow.
The researchers and environmentalists, keeping degradation of eco system in mind, have already proposed to promote natural fish ponds, wetlands and lakes through restoring feeding sources of the same. However, authorities have their own priorities.
The danger is clear and present and encouraging commercial fish farming on the fertile lands has put the entire marine and river ecology at stake under the auspices of the ‘high and mighty’.
The vulnerability of the people can be measured from the fact that neither fishing nor
agriculture sectors are anywhere on the government’s front burner.
Experts have also demanded of the government to ensure provision of 10 million acre feet (maf) water from the river to the sea to save Indus Delta as it has been mentioned in the 1991 Water Accord.
It is not the issue of fishing and agriculture sector any longer.
There is more to it than what meets the eye. It is beyond belief that the fresh groundwater in the villages along the coastline and near the river is fast going brackish, forcing people to migrate to unknown destinations for their survival.
