Agriculture: Manchhar lake left to its dismal fate.

Sindh government's decision not to take over administrative control of Right Bank Outfall Drain (RBOD) components I and III has come as a surprise if the revival of Manchhar lake's ecology is anything to go by. The department says since RBOD-II, a key component of the RBOD series, has a faulty alignment and remains incomplete it is purposeless for Sindh to get control of RBOD-I and III, built by the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda).

Sindh irrigation minister Jam Khan Shoro conveyed the principled position of the Sindh government at a meeting of the National Assembly's Standing Committee on water resources held on May 11 in Islamabad. It is implied in the decision that the effluent discharge of RBOD-I would continued to be released into Manchhar, located in the Sindh chief minister's constituency of Jamshoro district.

Sindh minister didn't explain when RBOD-II would be completed and what is the way forward, even though the Sindh government's project steering committee in May 2021 had decided to hand over RBOD-II to Wapda for completion and that the 'Sindh government will extend full cooperation to the federal government for completion'.

According to the committee's decision, the irrigation department prepared a summary to be submitted to the chief minister of Sindh for approval. The irrigation minister is said to have proposed in his 'note' on the summary that regardless of the executing agency, RBOD-II should/can not be completed with the present alignment. The summary has been pending for the last year.

Fourteen years down the road, the government has not been able to fix RBOD-II that can revive the lake's dying ecology

While the irrigation minister might be justified in refusing to take over control of RBOD components, the disturbing aspect of this decision is that the rehabilitation of Manchhar lake will keep eluding it because it is directly dependent on RBOD-II's completion.

The Sindh government has a share of Rs7 billion in the federally funded RBOD-II, which could not be completed after two decades. The present provincial ruling party has been at the helm since Feb 2008, but 14 years down the road it hasn't come up with a solution on how to go about it if it has reservations over the project's design. And why didn't the government object to the second cost revision at Rs62bn in 2017 without first getting RBOD-II's alignment corrected?

The destiny of Manchhar, therefore, remains unchanged. It is an old story that the lake...

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