Balochistan accuses Sindh of stealing water [The Nation] 22 Sep, 2016
ISLAMABAD - Balochistan has yesterday complained to the Federal government that Sindh was stealing its water share which has resulted in severe water shortage in the province.Sindh is stealing about 6,000 to 7,000 cusecs of water allocated to the province under 1991 Water Accord, said Indus River System Authority (IRSA) member Balochistan Muhammad Naseem Bazai to the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Water and Power.
The Committee meeting was presided over by Muhammad Arshad Khan Leghari. Naseem Bazai said that already the province is getting less water from its intends but the Sindh stealing of its share has further aggravated the water availability situation in the province.He said that since 1991 to 2014, Balochistan got almost 50 per cent less water than its demand that resulted in losses of around Rs 93 billion to the province.Nawab Muhammad Yousuf Talpur informed the Committee that due to water shortage, around five million acre of land of Sindh province has turned into barren which inflicted losses of tens of trillions of rupees on the province.Chairman IRSA, Rao Irshad Ali Khan while briefing the Committee nullified the impression that provinces, especially Sindh, is given fewer water share and said that there is no discrimination in water distribution among provinces. “If we have enough water in our system we increase the share of the provinces,” he added.He said that this year Sindh has been given 15 per cent extra water higher than its share. Not only Sindh, in fact, all provinces have been given higher than its share due to availability of access water in the country, he added.He further said that since 1992 to 2016, on average Sindh got six per cent less water of its share, Punjab nine per cent less and KPK has received more than its share whereas Balochistan has got only 60 per cent of its share.During the meeting officials of Sindh based Power Distribution Companies (Discos) and the elected public representatives of the province also complained of each other for non-cooperation to help reduce power theft and other irregularities in power distribution system in the province. The Committee adopted the report prepared by its Sub-Committee on “the performance of Disco’s of Sindh” and expressed its concern over the non-cooperative attitude of Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (HESCO) & Sukkur Electric Power Company (SEPCO).The Committee also directed the Ministry of Water and Power to address the issues identified by the Sub-Committee and submit its compliance report within 15 days.The Committee also constituted another Sub-Committee on the issues pertaining to HESCO and SEPCO, which is headed by Nawab Muhammad Yousuf Talpur.The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sepco, Mujahid Islam said that there were up to 400 kunda connections at each transformer in his jurisdiction, while in certain areas only 10-15 people per transformer pay their bills.“If the transformer gets damaged or burned off in any such area than the transformers are not replaced,” SEPCO CEO Mujahid Islam, “Just before Eid one elected representative assured us that payments would be made if we replaced the damaged transformer, but payment has yet to be made.” He said that 17,000 kunda connections have been identified and offered to get meters installed but only 400 of them have responded to the offer.“The real issue is that SEPCO employees are involved in electricity thefts, but they are being supported by political personalities,” he said.”If we take action against such employees than they apply political pressures,incase we avoid action against such employees then kunda system will remain uncontrolled,” Mujahid added.However, he said that, despite political pressure, cases have been filed against two SDOs, and their cases have been referred to NAB, whereas four XEN have been suspended who were facilitating electricity theft.Giving the statistics of electricity consumers in SEPCO, Mujahid Islam said that there were a 700,000 consumers which have been brought down to 550,000 but a huge number 375,000 are defaulters.The subject of overbilling was also discussed in the meeting and the Committee directed the Ministry to eliminate the factor of over billing as the worst sufferers in this regard were the ordinary domestic consumers.Additional Secretary, Water and Power Umar Rasool told the Committee that the issue of overbilling would be resolved by the start of 2017.“We are set to implement mobile meter reading system across the country, but the meter readers were the main hurdle in implementing this digital reading process,” Umar Rasool said. “Many meter readers have been laid off from different DISCOs who were organising resistance to this digital reading process,” he informed.He told the Committee that digital metre reading process has been implemented at 88 per cent consumers in LESCO (Lahore), 90 per cent consumers in FESCO (Faisalabad), 90 per cent consumers in MEPCO (Multan), 90 per cent in IESCO (Islamabad).“It will help reduce over-billing and similar complaints by 70 – 80 per cent after the whole country is converted to digital meter reading,” Umar Rasool said.Published in The Nation newspaper on 22-Sep-2016
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