Sindh Fisheries Minister, Zahid Bhurgari has said that the left bank embankments of Indus river, which protect Hyderabad from flooding, have been reinforced to the point that they can safely pass around 1.2 million cusecs of superflood through them.
Accompanied by Commissioner Hyderabad division Ahmed Bux Narejo and officials of the Sindh Irrigation and Drainage Authority (SIDA) the minister visited on Monday the entire stretch of 30 kilometers from Ghalyan in Hyderabad Rural to Kohsar in Latifabad taluka.
Talking to the media during the visit, Bhurgari said the levees which shield the city from floods had been strengthened according to the directives of President Asif Ali Zardari. “The bunds are now strong enough to bear the pressure of water which equal to or slighter higher than the floods which passed down the Kotri barrage in 2010,” he claimed.
Syed Aijaz Shah, the acting Director of Left Bank Canal Area Water Board, which is responsible for the embankment’s maintenance, while briefing the minister on the occasion informed that a sum of Rs55.6 million was spent on their strengthening.
“We have raised the bund’s height by 2 to 7 feet in different parts and made the entire stretch of it, except about a 1 km area, motorable with a widened freeboard of 35 feet,” he told.
According to Shah, the Asian Development Bank had funded the project.
In reply to a question he apprised that the 1 km or so stretch at Giddu bund had not been restrengthened due to the encroachments.
“In the light of the ADB’s policy, the people who have built homes on it have to be resettled with proper compensation,” he explained.
The acting Director said that SIDA had requested the provincial government and the Commissioner of Hyderabad to take steps for the resettlement of the people.
Commissioner of Hyderabad Divison Ahmed Bux Narejo said the district administration was talking to the people who had encroached the land on the riverbed and along the banks.
He assured that soon the government would make arrangements for their resettlement.
The commissioner informed that the government was also reviewing how a developer was authorized to construct Bismillah Housing Society inside the embankment on the riverbed.
In reply to a question the provincial minister said that the Hyderabad Development Authority (HDA) had now power to authorize construction activity on the riverbed whose control vested with the irrigation authorities.
Bhurgari said that there were around 200 houses built in that illegal project and added that the government would gradually evacuate the area and shift the residents elsewhere.
The minister along with the district administration officials later also visited an under construction overhead bridge in Halanaka area.
He took strong notice of the traffic clogging problem and asked the concerned authorities to deploy additional wardens to regulate the traffic until the construction completed.
