Daily Times

Caretaker Sindh Chief Minister Justice Maqbool Baqar on Saturday directed the local government to improve the quality of ongoing rehabilitation work at Manchar Lake, which is being conducted under a World Bank project following last year’s devastating floods.

He issued these directives while visiting areas near Manchar Lake, including the flood protection bund along the lake and the canal systems in Jamshoro District. The World Bank’s Sindh Flood Emergency Rehabilitation Project was approved in December last year after the monsoon superfloods had wreaked havoc across the country, especially Sindh and Balochistan.

It aims to rehabilitate damaged infrastructure and provide short-term livelihood opportunities in selected areas of Sindh affected by the 2022 floods, as well as strengthen the provincial government’s capacity to respond to the impacts of climate change and natural hazards. The flood protection bund is an embankment that begins from upper Sindh and ends at Manchar Lake in order to protect the area from hill torrents’ water flows during monsoon season. It had developed breaches during last year’s rainfall and floodwaters coming from Balochistan, leading to a cut made in the lake’s dyke to release pressure.

Today, CM Baqar also issued directives that the height of the bund be raised after he was told that its height was being revised to six feet higher than the last flood level of 2022. He was informed that by raising its height, it would become a channel to safely bring higher flows of water during monsoon to Manchar Lake. He observed that the quality of work should be further improved considering the fact that the province’s economy depends on the agriculture sector, and therefore, a well-performing irrigation system was essential. The CM inspected the development work at the Aral Wah Canal, whose bed has been widened and a new regulator with 14 gates is being built to have a revised designed discharge capacity of 52,000 cusecs, up from 10,000 cusecs. Meanwhile, CM Baqar distributed sanads (proprietary rights documents) among 51 flood-affected people at a ceremony held at the Sehwan Fort. The chief minister also inspected reconstruction work on houses damaged during the 2022 floods, where he was informed that around 2m houses had been destroyed as a result of the floods.