BADIN - The leaders of Save Badin Action Committee have claimed that many parts of the district are still without irrigation water due to alleged negligence of the irrigation and SIDA officials.
Mir Noor Ahmed Talpur, Khalil Ahmed Bhurgari, Azizullah Dero, Khuda Dino Shah and other leaders of the committee talking to the local journalists here on Friday rejected the claims of the functionaries of Sindh government and the officials of both Sindh Irrigation and Drainage Authority (SIDA) and irrigation officials that most parts of the district had been provided with ample water. They said that tail-end areas of various areas falling in irrigation sub-divisions of Kadhan, Qazia, Talhar and some others were still not being provided with the required quantity of the water due to alleged mismanagement of the concerned authorities.
“The people in the coastal are still drinking contaminated water,” they said and added that as long as the blockages are there most tail-end areas of the district would never get water as per their requirement for both crop cultivation and drinking purposes.
They alleged that the local officials had no plan to regulate the water flows as per requirement of the farmers in various areas of the district. They maintained that many farmers were not ready to take risk to prepare the lands for the rice cultivation due to no regulation or rotation programs given to them by the irrigation officials despite the fact the season of the chief crop of the district was fast running out.
They reiterated their demand of the removal of the director SIDA, Mir Ghulam Ali Talpur, who according to them, was behind the mess and responsible for diverting the water flows to influential figures, whose lands were once used to be irrigated from the canals of Sukkur Barrage.
They claimed that Rs 6 billion were spent on the blockages erected in Phuleli Canal to irrigate the lands of the influential people in Tando Allahyar district and certain areas of Badin in Matli taluka.
The leaders said that they would further give their plans to enlarge the scope of their just demands during the moot to be held in Talhar town on Saturday (today).
They told that the know water experts, environmentalists member of the civil society, lawyers and farmers had been invited to participate in the conference on water issue and its impacts on the environment and agriculture sector of the district.
