World Bank Project: Replacement of Sukkur, Guddu Barrages gates underway

SUKKUR: As many as five gates of Sukkur and Guddu Barrages have been replaced, while fabrication of several others is underway. This information came to fore during a virtual meeting of the World Bank over the modernization and rehabilitation of Sukkur and Guddu Barrages presided over by Task Team leader François Onimus on Thursday.

Mohiuddin Mughal, Project Director, presented a detailed progress report, saying replacement of the gates of three canals taking off from Guddu Barrage have been completed, while the main barrages gates are under fabrication at a facility in Turkey. The chief resident engineer said 10 out of 65 gates of the main Guddu Barrage have been fabricated in Turkey. Six of those will arrive by end of May. He pledged to install them before the coming flood season.

Mughal said the work to replace the Sukkur Barrage gates numbers 39,40,35,33,32,31 is underway. Two gates 39, 40 have been replaced while work to replace 35 is going on. While gates 31, 33,32 and are under fabrication and their 80 percent work has been completed.

He highlighted that in order to replace 50 gates of Sukkur Barrage, a contract will be awarded by June 2021. The World Bank Task Team Leader Francois Onimus appreciated the progress of rehabilitation of Guddu and Sukkur barrages and said any damage to these barrages and river training works may cause billion dollars worth damage to Sindh’s economy.

The meeting was also attended by Sajid Ali Bhutto, Deputy Project Director SBIP, ex secretary Irrigation Junaid Memon, ex additional secretary Aslam Ansari, IRSA member of Sindh Zahid Ali Junejo, Rubina Wahaj, Dr Maria, Ghulam Hyder Qureshi, Maryam Minhas and Ms Fareiha from Project Coordination Monitoring Unit of Planning and Development Department Government of Sindh.