LARKANA: The second session of the `LahotiMelo`was titled, `The fate of River Indus`.

The panelists were Afia Salam, Mohammed Ehsan Leghari and Naseer Memon.

Dealing with the subject, Naseer Memon said the plan to dig six canals is being described as `strategic`, but in actual sense it comprises only two canals. Under the cover of six canals, the impression is being given that it is a `national` plan.

The Chashma Right Bank is for KPK, Kachhi Canal for Balochistan, Rani and Thar Wah for Sindh and Cholistan and Chobara are for Punjab, he said. The matter of fact is that Kachhi, Chashma Right Bank, Rani and Greater Thal Canal-I had already been laid during Gen Musharraf era.

In those days, Sindh had rejected Rani Canal as therewas no water allocation for it in the 1991 Water Accord while Sindh had already raised objection to the Greater Thal Canal as well, he said. `If seen minutely, the Greater Cholistan-I and within it smaller Cholistan-II are amalgamated,` he said, and noted that it was a `huge system` to bring under cultivation an area of 6.6m acres. Further elaborating his point, he said in Greater Cholistan, there are two small dams having a respective capacity of 3.5maf (million acre foot). Also a huge feeder and link canal system is there in the plan along with two barrages on Satlaj, he said. Responding to a query from moderator Nisar Khokhar, Mr Memon said it`s a project bigger than Kalabgh dam.

He said from Kalabgh dam, Sindh was supposed to get little share but under the current plan, there is zero sharefor any other province. He saw Cholistan and Chubara as the real threat, while terming the rest of them `just a smog screen`.

Delicately dealing with 20-year water account of the Indus River System Authority (Irsa), he said cumulatively there was 16.5pc shortage of water in the country, and then the big question is `whether Punjab will create or invent water! .

When water is distributed under the 1991 Water Apportionment Accord, definitely a cut would be made in the existing share for these canals, he said. He, with facts and figures, said `we are journeying towards dryness`.

He said Sindh had submitted its summary with the Council of Common Interests (CCI) in November 2024 and since then no meeting of the council has been summoned.

`In my opinion, neither the CCI nor the judiciary and nor PPP government, but the deciding factor in canals issue is people`s stiff stand,` he said.

Afia Salam said that constitutionally without taking into confidence the tail-ender no canal could be created.

She said world was moving toward `nature-based` solutions which were yet to be tapped. `Dams are the tales of the past,` she remarked, and stressed that `It`s now time to align you to go shoulder by shoulder with world`.

She technically talked about the element of water losses on accounts of evaporation and seepage, and also about storing underground water.

Ehsan Leghari, Sindh member at Irsa, said that Sindh was set to move the CCI against Cholistan, Greater Thal Canal and the three-tiers formula.-Correspondent