HYDERABAD: Work on a small stretch of the contentious Cholistan Flood Feeder canal had been initiated before construction was stopped ostensibly due to the controversy surrounding the new irrigation channel a team of irrigation experts sent to the area by the Sindh chief minister has found.

The team of retired and serving senior irrigation officers recently submitted an assessment report to the CM after visiting the area, sources and team members told Dawn.

In remarks made in the Bhan Syedabad area a day earlier, Sindh CM Murad Ali Shah had referred to a team he had dispatched to Cholistan for an on-ground assessment.

The irrigation experts, who visited Cholistan from April 13 to 14, were not part of any officially notified team, one of its members confided to Dawn. `We were required to give our assessment on the ground,` the member said while talking about the purpose of the visit.

According to information obtained by Dawn, the team was headed by former irrigation secretary and ex-adviser to Sindh CM on irrigation, Babar Effendi, and also included former Kotri barrage chief engineer Haji Khan Jamali, former irrigation department additional secretary (development) Aslam Ansari, exchief engineer Sukkur barrage Irshad Memon, ex-officer of Sindh Irrigation and Drainage Authority Habib Ursani, Khalid Jan Baloch, Naeemul Haddad and others.

After an overnight stay in Bahawalpur, the team visited Cholistan and the Sulemanki headworks on Sutlej river north of Bahawalnagar.

The team found that work on a fourto five-kilometre strip of embankment of an irrigation channel had been started, but was currently paused.

A team member told Dawn that a strip of the embankment and canal bed was built, which appeared to be part of the Marot canal, a waterway linked to theCholistan Flood Feeder.

Earlier in March, Syed Zain Shah, leader of the nationalist Sindh United Party, visited the area and uploaded a video on social media claiming that construction work on the canal was ongoing.

In the video, which went viral on social media, Mr Shah claimed work was underway on the Marot branch and construction machinery was also present at the site.

But according to a member of the Sindh team, who did not wish to be named as they were not authorised to discuss their findings, said they didn`t find any construction activity at the Sulemanki headworks, the starting point of the 176km Cholistan Flood Feeder.

Construction on the narrow stretch of land was stopped `ever since the matter generated heated debate`, the team member said.

They said that heavy machinery was present at the site, but was `lying idle`.

The experts also questioned the staff at the headworks regarding the canal, but said they `didn`t get any answers`.

Based on observations from the tentative alignment of the canal obtained from PC-1 of the project and satellite imagery, the Cholistan Flood Feeder will run parallel to the existing Eastern Sadgia canal of Sulemanki headworks, he said.

According to the team member, the excavation of a 4km-to-5km-long stretch of land was carried out near Marot village for what appeared to be the Marot branch of the Cholistan Flood Feeder.

Another team member told Dawn that a camp had been set up at the site, where a sub-engineer was present. `This subengineer told us that they have been asked to stop work. His statement showed work at the site is stopped for the time being,` he said.

The team member believed the strip was `probably built for the inauguration ceremony` of the Green Pakistan Initiative, a corporate farming project, in February, which was attended by Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz and Chief of Army Staff Gen Syed Asim Munir.