The Sindh government has constituted a high-powered committee comprising several provincial ministers and bureaucrats to review the proposed programmes and suggestions mentioned in the draft of the United Nations (UN) Living Indus Initiative to improve the water quality and quantity, and restore the health of the Indus River’s basin.
The review committee comprises Sindh Irrigation Minister Jam Khan Shoro, Environment, Climate Change and Coastal Development Minister Muhammad Ismail Rahoo, Parliamentary Secretary for Health Qasim Siraj Soomro, MPA Pir Mujeeb and officers from the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency and other relevant departments.
The review committee would submit its final recommendations and suggestions to the office of the UN resident coordinator for Pakistan, Julien Harneis, by June 1 so that the draft could be finalised.
This was decided in a meeting with the UN resident coordinator and other officials held in Clifton. The meeting was attended Shoro, Rahoo, Soomro, Mujeeb and others. Harneis told the meeting that the UN had started work on the Living Indus Initiative under the prime minister’s climate change committee in December last year.
He maintained that the water of the Indus River had been contaminated to an extent that there was a need for engaging society to change their attitudes in order to conserve water and quality of water in the river.
Shoro said that the volume of water had been reduced in the Indus River and there was not enough water available for cultivation. He added that Sindh was facing scarcity of water leading to sea intrusion and other ecological problems.
The irrigation minister said the Indus basin had also facing a big problem of sedimentation at the Guddu and Kotri lower riparian areas and added that the water quality of the river had been contaminated due to disposal of toxic chemicals and industrial effluent from Punjab.
He told the meeting said that Sindh was working to formulate its water policy and it would be announced soon. The Sindh environment minster assured the UN representative that a detailed discussion on the draft of the Living Indus Initiative would be carried out by the review committee and later, final recommendations would be proposed and incorporated in the final draft.