HYDERABAD: Moosa Chandio owns 10 acres of land in village Bakhsho Chandio, near Khudabad, Dadu district. He is among hundreds of small farmers, who have been forced to migrate in search of better livelihood due to acute shortage of water, both for irrigation and drinking purposes.
Moosa, along with a group of 25 women cotton pickers is returning home after a day’s work at the cotton field of a local landlord. There, he manages the workforce, mostly women, who are paid Rs100-200 for cotton picking. Landlords pay Rs300 for picking a maund of cotton against the government fixed rate of Rs500 per maund, and these women are hardly able to pick 25-30kg a day. Moosa arranges tractor trolleys for the women workers’ pick and drop.
"I have to do this job because our land cannot be cultivated due to unavailability of irrigation water for the last 15 years. We are four brothers, with a 16-member joint family, entirely depending on the land for livelihood," Moosa said.
According to the locals, the water shortage is artificial, created by the influential landlords on the upper end of the irrigation system. These landlords with strong political backing are inflicting huge losses on the tail-end growers, who are facing destruction and displacement.
Ibrahim Bhand, another small grower - leading a local platform Rural Support Organisation (RSO) of Khudabad, Dadu district - said that the water shortage has changed and destroyed the source of living for small growers over the years.
Khudabad used to be the main trade centre of the entire area for supplying grains, cotton and other crop yields, but now it has lost its commercial position.
RSO office-bearers said the water shortage has forced farmers to change crop cultivation patterns, and even some rich growers have either migrated to urban centres or changed their profession. They do not have exact data, but said hundreds of families have migrated to other areas in search of better living.
Abrar Ahmed, a homoeopath from village Mukhtiar Nagar, said he owns 500 acres of land, which was now barren because of water scarcity. Agriculture is the main source of livelihood for many people, including peasant women, artisans, daily wage earners, shopkeepers and traders. A majority has lost their traditional source of living.
Abrar said many people have lost hope. “The only thing stopping many from migrating is their precious family land, which presently does not have a price.”
Growers of village Faiz Muhammad Qambrani in Khairpur Nathan Shah taluka of Dadu district face similar issues, like water shortage, poor governance of water distribution, increasing joblessness and vulnerability to floods and other natural calamities.
These villagers also shared their bad experiences during the devastating floods of 2010, which forced them to stay outside the village for two-three months. They suffered huge losses and rebuilt their shelters with a lot of difficulty. They still live in fear between the Main Nara Valley (MNV) drain and Flood Protective (FP) Bund.
In the past, they used to cultivate pearl millet and sorghum, and the area was rich in terms of producing grains, fruits and vegetables with alternate source of livestock.
Persistent dryness has widely damaged soil fertility and increased water logging and salinity. Some farmers installed tube wells to extract ground water, which further destroyed soil fertility, while groundwater level has also dropped. This practice has further contributed to the decline in source of drinking water.
The affected growers showed dry and dilapidated watercourses. The main source of irrigation is the 85-year-old Dadu canal, coming from Sukkur Barrage. The irrigation system was built in 1932, and is need of a redesign. Khudabad Branch, Johi branch and other distributaries coming from Dadu canal have dried. The community people claim they communicated with Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah during his recent visit. The CM was elected as MPA from this constituency. He has assured people of installing reverse osmosis (RO) plants to resolve the drinking water issue, and also took notice of non-availability of irrigation water. He has assured the locals of looking into the matter.
Acute water shortage has impacted all socioeconomic activities in this area. Condition of health and education is not satisfactory either. Some girls’ schools in different villages have been closed for many years.
