Farmers decry water shortage

HYDERABAD: The Sindh Abadgar Board (SAB) has expressed grave concern over the harmful effect of water shortage on the winter crops.

Abdul Majeed Nizamani, president of SAB, said there exists a shortfall of canal supplied water on one hand and power outages and low voltage leaves tube wells redundant on the other.

Nizamani, at a meeting, said wheat crop would particularly be affected by the shortage. Hyderabad Electric Supply Company is carrying out unnecessary power outages. He asked the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority to take notice of frequent disruption of the power supply to the tube wells.

Though the canals are annually closed for repair and maintenance but no proper desilting and repair are done, which results in water loss and shortage of water in the tail-end areas.

The meeting demanded of the Sindh government to rehabilitate the gates of the regulators of canals and distributaries across the province and also to restore the inspection paths along the canals.

Farmers also called for installation of telemetry system, which has been successfully done in the Punjab to ensure transparent and fair distribution of water.

The SAB said the trees planted on the inspection path have mostly been chopped off during the last few decades and demanded tree plantation on the path.