No water at the end of canal for rice zone farmers

HYDERABAD:  Muhammad Ramzan Jatt, a farmer from village Abdul Rehman Jatt, is totally blissed out because he’s looking forward to a long-awaited rub of the green after being able to cultivate his 14 acres of fertile land that had been lying barren for many years owing to scarceness of irrigation water.

“We collected an amount of Rs3,60,000 from farmers from a dozen of villages to hire excavation machinery to clean the water body up to seven kilometers,” said Ramzan sharing the success story of the initiative that made it possible. 

“This is how the farmers at the tail end of Raj Wah (canal) in Badin district had the watercourse de-silted after 32 years with their joint interventions.” 

Ramzan said farmers in this area depend on irrigation water for cultivation without which there would be no crops to cultivate or livestock to raise that means suffering and hardship. 

Ramzan’s family was one of the few lucky ones, which got a piece of state land on lease during 1960s. At that time the area was abandoned and the government had designed a comprehensive plan to bring farmer families from different areas, offered them pieces of land to cultivate and settled there. Around 0.4 million acres of land was given to the farming families that now live in scattered villages.

“We have managed to cultivate a decent crop of rice after a gap of 15 years,” said he hoping to have enough water through the recently de-silted canal. 

This dream of theirs, however, was shattered when heavy monsoon that jumpstarted in June forced the irrigation department to minimise the flow of water into the canal to avoid breaches. As a result, farmers lost their investment on the cultivation of water-intensive crops like rice and sugarcane.

“Since Badin district is a rice belt, the water shortage adversely affected the yield this year,” he added.

Raj Wah is a tributary of Akram Wah (canal), which was built in 1962 with 4100 cusec capacity. It covers a distance of 80 kilomters from Kotri barrage to the coastal area in Badin district.

Ramzan, who is also a community elder, said when the government had leased out the land five decades ago, it was very fertile and their forefathers used to cultivate almost all food and cash crops. “They had more graains, milk, and butter because of adequate water supplies. But after many years the political maneuvering in agriculture sector the tail-end farmers were left to suffer because powerful landlords starting stealing water thus,” he added.

Reportedly, major landlords from Hyderabad and Tando Muhammad Khan districts also laying claim to the irrigation water of canals and watercourses, including Raj Wah.

Initially there were 137 watercourses registered with irrigation department on Akram Wah. Currently hardly 82 watercourses are functional, while the rest neither get their proper share of water, nor any attention from the government.

The farmers depending on Raj Wah still fear reversal of the situation after temporary relief due to the “different” approach of authorities.

The responsibility of dealing with water courses, distribution and maintenance is shifted from irrigation department of the provincial government to Sindh Irrigation Drainage Authority (SIDA).

SIDA has formed farmers’ organisations (FOs) to work independently with the powers to deal with problems in their areas. These FOs generate funds on their own by collecting water tax from landlords to utilise the same on the maintenance of watercourses.

A SIDA spokesman told The News that the main problem at watercourses is illegal direct outlets made by influential landlords, who operate lifting machines for 24 hours and deprive the tail-end farmers of their due share of water.

“Akram Wah has now lost its capacity and can carry only 2000 cusec instead of its original capacity of 4100 cusec,” said the spokesman. To ensure supply to tail-end users, the SIDA representative said, the authority and the provincial government were trying to secure funding from World Bank to improve capacity of Akram Wah. 

Nazir Ahmed Jatt, vice president of Sarsabz Ittehad, a representative body of 12 villages in UC Kadhan, informed The News that they were mobilising farmers, including peasant women to take initiative to resolve local problems on their own instead of waiting for the government’s help. 

Sarsabz Ittehad is a brainchild of Indus Consortium, a national support organization, which has mobilised the community people in two union councils of the district Badin. “We convene joint meetings with heads of local bodies’ institutions for the resolution of water supply and drainage schemes,” said Nazir adding that actually Sarsabz Ittehad, which means green alliance, is the driving force behind the recent de-siltation of Raj Wah canal. He said its members are continuously approaching area legislators, political parties and government authorities, sensitising them to extend the help to farmers, who are facing problems, specifically acute water shortage.

Abdul Wahid Brohi, popularly known as Jumma Khan in the area and owner of 32 acres of family land, said the area has been declared prone to disaster. “We have seen disasters like breaches in Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) after devastating rains in 2011, earthquake in 2001, prolonged drought-like-situation due to the closure of canal and continuous sea intrusion, which has played a major role in polluting underground water.”

Presently, Brohi disclosed, the underground water was heavily contaminated with arsenic. “Recently 80 people, including children and women of neighbouring village Fazal Jatt were brought to hospitals in Badin and other smaller towns. They were all diagnosed with arsenic poisoning,” Brohi said. The incident, he added, had created panic in the area.  Badin district health department officials visited the area and found the hand-pumped groundwater unfit for human consumption because it was tainted with arsenic.  

He said the government teams dealing with health matters responded to the crisis by bringing in thousands of bottles of safe mineral water for the villagers, but it can hardly be called a solution.  “They are ready to provide stopgap solutions but are not willing to touch the influential landlords, who control the watercourses, leaving not a single drop of water for the tail-end villagers,” said he lamenting the government’s apathy towards tail-end farming communities.