Call to rehabilitate Indus

Blog Saturday, January 31st, 2009

The decision to set up a Rehabilitation and Revival Commission to restore the Indus delta, as reported in the news report, ‘Call to establish Indus rehabilitation body’ (Jan 20), can still bring back one of the great river systems of the world to its original shape, though it is much belated as the damage caused is already immeasurable, yet as the maxim goes: ‘Better late than never’.

As the commission on national conference on the Indus delta reported, it will allocate resources for the revival of all forms of life that had been damaged and provide an alternative livelihood to all communities affected by the existing inequitable water distribution system who were consequently deprived of their means of livelihood.

The gigantic mission requires national consensus but at the same time needs international support in the shape of expertise in the related field, as well as huge funding.

This Herculean task has multi-dimensional hazards as well which also need to be addressed first. For instance, the perception of the upper riparian areas developed over a period of time, i.e. the water which flows to the sea is sheer wastage, and, secondly, open defiance of the consensus arrived at by the provinces for sharing water such as the ‘Indus Water Accord of 1991’ must be overcome in the first instance.

I would like to draw attention of the commission towards equally vital problem which our water system has been bracing for the last three decades. It is the contamination of sweet water lakes and the Indus River itself. The poisonous and saline water-carrying canal, the Right Bank Outfall Drain, is discharged into the lakes of Sindh such as Manchar and Haleji.

Moreover, right from Peshawar to Karachi, the entire human waste of cities, towns and industrial and agriculture toxic waste is thrown into the river, changing it into the “world’s great nullah as was rightly pointed out by Qazi Bashir Ahmed (‘Saving the River Indus’, Feb 2, 2008).

I, therefore, appeal to the commission to take up this issue of paramount importance in the first instance, independent of rehabilitating the Indus delta because the water carrying effluence has caused so many water-borne diseases, causing serious health hazards for the people who are using the highly polluted water.

Short URL: http://www.daily.pk/?p=6955