Facts about Thal flood water canal

The Exective Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) in its meeting held on 28th February 2002 approved the Thal Flood-Water Canal Project at a cost of Rs30.5 billion. The project is divided into two phases, the first to cost Rs21.8 billion and the second one Rs8.6 billion.

The two phases are spread over five stages. The difference between a stage and a phase is hazy at best, because according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, stage is a point or period in development, or a process, whereas a phase is a stage of change or development. Although the period of completion is seven years involving five years for Phase-I and two years for Phase-II, completion date is 30 June 2008. (This may be because the project was started a year before its approval by the Ecnec.) Annual recurring expenditure for maintenance after completion has been estimated at Rs142 million.

The sponsoring agency is the ministry of water and power, the executing agency is Wapda and the beneficiary is the government of Punjab, which will have the ultimate responsibility for operations and maintenance. The project covers 4 districts i.e. Bhakker, Layyah, Khushab and Jhang - all in Punjab with a population is 570,000. The proposed canal takes off from a head regulator at Adhi Kot of Chashma-Jhelum Link Canal where a regulator has been constructed. The gross cultivable area (GCA) of the project is 1.9 million acres and culturable command area (CCA) is 1.53 m acres.

 

In physical terms, the irrigation system will consist of one main canal, four branches namely Mankera, Chaubara, Dhingata and Nurpur, and one sub-branch Mahmood besides few minors having a total length of 1,475 miles. The length of main and branch canals will be 246 miles, of distributaries and minors 1227 miles, and irrigation channels 1473 miles. It will have 823 structures like regulators, bridges etc. There will be 152 head-and cross-regulators, 29 fall structures, 119 falls structures with road crossings, 2,8391 road bridges and 2,741 outlet structures. 79,962 acres of land will need to be acquired. Fifty-eight jeeps and 34 pickups will provide the much needed responsibility. Moreover, residential and non-residential buildings and other related civil works would also be built. Not much resettlement will be involved, that having been characterized as 'insignificant' in the PC1. The table below shows the details:

Time for construction and related agricultural developments is given in Table 2:

 

Summary of project cost estimate is given in Table 3:

 

The Project's feasibility has been assumed as given in Table 4:

 

Contrary to the name of the project, Thal Flood-Water Canal, most of the water will come out of allocation for 'Greater Thal Canal', as provided under the Water Accord 1991 and not from floods. Only supplemental water will come from floods between 1st June and 1st September of every year. Table 5 gives in precise mathematical terms the availability of water year in year out: Table 5:

 

It has been assumed in the Table 5 that the flood supplies between June and September on ten daily basis will be such as to make the total together with Punjab's allocation exactly 8.5 cusecs. The haste in arriving at the magic figure of 8,500 cusecs under all circumstances is apparent from the fact that for the third ten days of June, the allocation has been mentioned as 5.8 cusecs as against the actual allocation of 5.7 cusecs.

The Indus River System Authority (IRSA) has granted no objection certificate in the following words: - "The recommendations regarding availability of water, against the Para 2 and Para 4 uses apportioned to the Punjab canal in Water Accord, have made by 4:1 majority decision under sub section 92), section 8 of the IRSA Act (Member (Sindh) dissenting), as shown on the statement attached."

This recommendation was made under Water Accord 1991 whereby IRSA can "make recommendation on the availability of water against the allocated areas of the provinces". Thus the project is dependent on share of water of the Punjab province. The other objection that Sindh raises is that the proposed canal is being implemented under the Water Accord 1991, which the Government of Punjab has failed to honour. Getting back to the Accord, the availability is dependent upon the exaggerated water availability of 114 MAF, as promised under the Accord. It has usually been 103 MAF. As a matter of fact, the data for Kharif 2000-01 indicates that shortages with reference to the Accord were as high as 57 per cent for early Kharif and 29 per cent for late Kharif

This being a non-perennial canal, it is designed to provide irrigation water from 1st April to 30th September to the extent of 2.496 MAF. Out of this 1.873 MAF will be available under Inter-Provincial Accord 1991 from Punjab's own share and 0.624 MAF have been assumed as flood supplies during the monsoon period of four months.

The voluminous PC-I, surprisingly, does not provide any data on floods to support the assumed availability of water during the four months. If there are no floods, there will be no water. It should be interesting to know if any of the senior civil servants in the ministries of water and power or planning and development or finance departments objected to a hasty and hurried approval of this project and whether an objection was raised to the award of two contracts prior to the approval of the PC-I.

As a matter of fact, even if floods conform to the optimistic assumptions of the estimators, the water availability under the Accord is in itself in serious doubt. Allocation to Punjab was made for Greater Thal, and not for this project, i.e. Thal Flood Water Canal. But somehow, Greater Thal metamorphosed into 'Thal Flood Water Canal'.

The name would make sense only if the entire project were flood based.. The project has been approved by the ECNEC without its feasibility having been established. Since the project has been put under implementation before its approval, in case, the project is determined to be non-viable after the feasibility report, the responsibility for the loss to the exchequer for the unauthorized execution will have to be clearly outlined.

There have been howls of protest, particularly in the province of Sindh. The Sindh government through a letter of 7th March 2002 has protested against the approval of the project and has alleged bad faith in as much as the project document was received by Sindh three days after it had been cleared by the Central Development Working Party (CDWP). The Sindh government received the minutes of the meeting of the CDWP two days after they had been considered by Ecnec. Sindh received the project summary for the Ecnec on 26th February 2002, i.e. two days before its consideration.

Sindh has also expressed the apprehension that little or no water will be available for 'escapage' into the sea below Kotri, if it is used in the proposed canal; and the area will be destroyed with serious ecological, economic and social consequences. The mangroves in that area are a national heritage in spite of their location in Sindh.

Sindh has objected to this canal also on the ground that there is already a serious shortage of water in the country. Construction of a huge canal would aggravate the shortages for the areas under cultivation. The province's agriculture is on the brink of disaster and famine-like conditions prevail. It has also been stated that the canal will take off from Chashma-Jhelum Link Canal (C-J Canal), which itself is a great burden on Indus water system. Originally built to divert floodwater, C-J Canal is actually being run by Punjab for the year round. It is, therefore, feared by Sindh that the new "Thal Flood Canal", originally named as "Greater Thal Canal", will also be run for full year.

The project has been hastily conceived and rushed through the planning process without observing prescribed formalities. So much so that its feasibility report is not yet ready. According to the quarterly report referred to above, PC-II was under way when 25 per cent physical works had been completed against 30 per cent target by October 2001 (Please note that the report review period ended September 30).

According to Quarterly Progress Report on ADP Projects, for the period ending 30 September 2001 (six months back), a review of Greater Thal Canal (now Thal Flood-water Canal) indicated that, an allocation of Rs. 500 million had been made for the year and Rs. 50 million released. Rs. 7.8 million were spent. The carelessness with which the unapproved project was taken up is apparent from the fact that it was estimated in the same report to cost Rs25 billion (page 19) Rs 28 billion (page 18), Rs30 billion (page 17). It was finally approved for Rs30.5 billion on 28 February 2002.

Excavation contract for first reach (5 km) had been awarded, the contract for 2nd reach (15 kms) which was to be awarded in January 2002, may have been awarded and acquisition of 400 acres of land by government of Punjab, which was on track, may have been acquired. Tenders for structures and lining of Canal are to be opened in September 2002. In that report it was also stated that although the sponsoring agency was the ministry of water and power, executing agency was Wapda, and yet the PC-I was with the Punjab for submission to the Planning Commission.

The project has a long history. It has been under dispute since 1871 when the British rejected it for two reasons: (a) It would hit the vital interest of the lower riparian, i.e. Sindh; and (b) The land to be brought under cultivation is barren waste with no hope of producing anything.

In the recent past it was originally conceived as Greater Thal project, but was permanently shelved by the Ecnec in it's meeting on 19th August 1975. It formed part of " Kala Bagh Dam and Allied Irrigation Scheme" and included Kala Bagh Right Bank Canal, Kala Bagh Left Bank Canal, CRVC, CJ Link Canal (existing) and Thal Canal (existing).

Since Kala Bagh Dam has become a subject matter of intense provincial controversy, taking the proposed canal from Chashma-Jhelum Link without Kala Bagh, which would provide the required storage, is like putting the cart before the horse. Once the Canal is constructed and remains dry, it is assumed, the colossal expenditure on construction of the Canal together with branches, the land acquisition and the dislocation involved in resettlement all will be in vain.

Even if the assumed flood flows become available, a fat chance, the floodwater cannot be monopolized by Punjab, because the benefits of floods should accrue to other provinces as well. Besides the huge expenditure of Rs30.5 billion over seven years period giving an average of more than Rs 4 billion per annum, appears beyond the national resources of the government of Pakistan. And even if the huge resources could somehow be generated, their exclusive use in one province militates against the principle of equity.

The latest physical progress is not known, but in the meanwhile, it was reported on 19th March 2002 in the newspapers, 'that all work had been ordered to be stopped'. Nothing unusual in that! One could find a large number of projects never completed in time or left in the middle. Following is an illustrative list of mega projects that have shown remarkable slippage's:

 

Courtesy  Dawn March 26, 2002

Views presented here are of those of the writer and Pakissan.com is not liable them.

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