LARKANA: Pakistan Peoples Party Sindh president Nisar Ahmed Khuhro has called the Grand Democratic Alliance’s protest against proposed amendments to the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) Act an exercise in futility and said the centre has assured Sindh of not going ahead on amendments in the wake of Sindh Assembly’s resolution against the move.

In a press statement issued here on Friday, Mr Khuhro said that GDAs demonstrations were merely a ‘point scoring’ and nothing else.

He criticised the government’s plan for cultivating thousands of acres of land in Punjab under ‘Green Pakistan Initiative’ by constructing six canals and questioned from where ‘required volume of water’ would come. The issue needed further clarification, he said.

He said that already hundreds of thousands of acres of fertile land in Sindh had turned infertile due to chronic water shortage. Amid the existing situation where from the additional water would be arranged for the six new canals, he asked.

Right from Taunsa to Guddu barrages huge amount of water of Sindh’s share was being stolen through 150 big pumping machines. A committee headed by Khalid Magsi was constituted to address the issue and it proposed installation of Telemetry System after exhaustive discussions. The ECNEC also endorsed Magsi’s proposal but the decision had yet not seen the light of the day, he said.

He said that there was no alternate water storage to Tarbella, except rains, melting snow and water from Kabul River.

Sindh was unfortunately and unjustifiably criticised for wasting water downstream Kotri Barrage, he said.

The Irsa had once called for appointing consultants to decide about the ‘flows’ downstream Kotri but failed to implement it, he said.

Published in Dawn, September 21st, 2024