KARACHI: Caretaker Sindh Chief Minister Fazulur Rehman directed on Thursday to deploy Pakistan Rangers at different canals, distributaries and channels to stop the theft of water so that it could be provided at the tail-end.
He took this decision while presiding over a meeting of irrigation department to review water position at different barrages here at the CM House in Karachi.
Irrigation Secretary Jamal Shah briefing the chief minister said that water position has considerably improved at Guddu Barrage and it has been recorded at 81,328 cusecs.
The position of different barrages is as follows:
Guddu Barrage upstream is 81,328 cusecs and downstream is 63,948. Sukkur Barrage upstream 48,401 and downstream 15,831. Gotri Barrage upstream is 6,880 cusecs.
The chief minister was told that the allocation for Guddu Barrage 31,100 and Balochistan 6,700, Sukkur Barrage 5,600 and Balochistan 2,200 and Kotri Barrage 32500.
Guddu Barrage withdrawal: Begari Sindh feeder withdrawal is 3,054, desert pat Feeder 7,700, Ghotki Feeder 6,626.
Sukkur Barrage: Northwestern canal 3,100, Rice Canal 4,040, Dadu Canal 2,360, Nara Canal 10,500, Khairpur Feeder East 1,415, Rohri Canal 10,000, Khairpur Feeder West 1,155.
Kotri Barrage: Kalri Baghar 2,660, Akram wah 640, Pinyari 1,530, New Fuleli 2,125 total 6,955. In this, the total withdrawal of canals of Sindh is 56,905 cusecs.
The chief minister said that Nara Canal has the capacity of 13,649 cusecs against which it withdraws 10,500 cusecs. “This is not a bad situation but even then, there is an acute shortage at the end of Nara Canal,” the chief minister said. On this, the secretary said that there was water theft on different distributaries and added that so far 50 FIRs have been registered.
Caretaker chief minister decided to deploy Rangers in aid to the police so that water theft could be stopped. “My objective is to provide water to all the tail-enders- therefore I am going to deploy Rangers and the cases of theft would be registered directly against the landlord not against their kamdars (managers),” he said.
The chief minister directed the irrigation secretary to identify the spots of canals, distributaries and branches from where water is stolen and hand over the list to the home secretary.
The home secretary would coordinate with Rangers for their deployment. The chief minister also spoke with Rangers DG for the deployment of security personnel along the canals.
The meeting was attended by caretaker Irrigation Minister Mushtaq Shah, Principal Secretary to CM Sohail Rajput and Irrigation Secretary Syed Jamal Shah.
