Bilawal voices concern over sea intrusion into Thatta, Badin

Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has expressed serious concern over the accelerated rate at which the fertile land of Badin and Thatta districts was being eroded by the sea.

Research shows that already 2.4 million acres of the Indus Delta had gone under the sea and it is feared that at the present rate of sea erosion would bring the entire Shah Bunder Tehsil under sea water by 2035 and the sea would reach the Thatta city by 2050.

The PPP chairman pointed out that the Inter-Provincial Water Accord of 1991 recognizes the need of the release of sufficient quantities of water downstream of Kotri to check sea erosion. More than 25 years later as the sea continues to devour our coastal villages and most fertile lands, Irsa, whose responsibility it is to implement the water accord has not been able to determine that sufficient quantity of downstream Kotri flow of water, he added.

Under the accord, pending a scientific study, it was temporarily agreed that 10 million acres feet (MAF) of water would be allowed to flow downstream of Kotri every year. Fancy claims are being made that 35 MAF are flowing into the sea.

Bilawal asked if anyone could explain that with this much water flowing into the sea why fertile land was being lost to the sea on a daily basis. He said that there was no option other than rejecting these fancy claims and figures as false and concocted.

He further pinpointed that calculations of water availability in the Indus River system given by the seven experts included in the GN Abbasi Committee constituted by General Musharraf vary from plus 32 MAF to minus 14 MAF.

Every expert may have his own reason to arrive at figures that differ by a good 46 MAF, he said, adding that what we and our peasants are seeing with our own eyes is the bare fact that sea waves are advancing on lands where just a few years back lush green crops and fruit orchards existed.

The PPP leader further said that the land that had gone under the sea was the land of Pakistan and very centimeter of this land was precious. The Government of Sindh has started an ambitious programme for rehabilitating the old waterways in its Water Sector Improvement Project, he said.

The Senate Committee on Climate Change has also made strong recommendations to the federal government to provide adequate financial resources for completing this project. The recommendations of the Senate Committee have not been taken up by this government like so many other recommendations made by the Senate.

He asked how the rehabilitation of old natural waterways could check the sea erosion if there was no water flowing even in the main river. Bilawal was concerned that Irsa had not paid any attention to this serious problem which should be alarming for every Pakistani, and its apathy and failure were condemnable.

He vowed that the next government of the Pakistan Peoples Party would give priority to protect Pakistan’s land which was going under the sea. There was no natural reason for the destruction of the delta of the mighty Indus, the Lion River, and this destruction was hundred percent man-made, he said, adding that we see no reason why the delta of the mighty Indus could not be protected and rehabilitated when deltas and wetlands all over the world were being protected as part of the programme of saving the global environment.