The Baloch Hal A Baloch Perspective
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Islamabad Refuses to Finance Water Schemes in Balochistan
The Baloch Hal News
QUETTA: The Federal government has finally refused to finance all the schemes of Balochistan government in water sector without assigning any reasons.
According to the Provincial Minister for Irrigation and Power, Sardar Aslam Bizenjo, claimed that the federal government had refused to finance the projects in water sector advising the Provincial Government to finance the schemes from its own resources.
The Minister said that the Government had already spent 25 per cent of money on the projects and all these spending will go waste if they same were not complete with the financial assistance from the Federal Government.
Sardar Aslam Bizenjo immediately apprised the Chief Minister, Nawab Aslam Raisani informing him about the refusal of the Federal Government to provide funds for schemes in water sector.
The Government had planned to construct at least 100 small dams besides six or seven medium size dams in all parts of Balochistan overcoming the shortage of water for irrigation and bringing more areas under cultivation.
Later the Chief Minister along with Sardar Aslam Bizenjo had a joint meeting with the Governor of Balochistan, Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Magsi, informing him about the situation arising out of refusal to finance implementing schemes in water sector, mainly the proposed small dams on seasonal rivers.
They requested the Governor to convene a meeting of the Balochistan Assembly discussing this and other issues of immediate importance. There were reports that the Governor is expected to convene a session of the Provincial Assembly on August 5 next.
The Chief Minister, Nawab Mohammad Aslam Raisani, had also expressed his anger on discontinuing the subsidy on tube-wells and said he would take up the issue with the Prime Minister. He rejected the contention of the QESCO on this issue.
However, the environmentalists are opposed to granting any subsidy to owners of tube-wells on two counts claiming an environmental disaster as water table is going down as a result of indiscriminate withdrawal of subsoil water. They feared that the Quetta Valley would become a desert soon if the indiscriminate withdrawal of subsoil water is stopped immediately and effectively. Secondly, the owners of tube-wells are paying a meager amount of money causing a shortfall of power supply to all other sectors of the economy. It had caused power fluctuation and also prolonged load shedding as more than 50 per cent of the connections to tube wells are illegal and unauthorized.
Rahnabard
August 4, 2010 at 10:41 am
The tube well subsidy is a hurting Balochistan in two ways. It is principally responsible for degradation of water table in our arid environment. On the other hand, since the early 21st century, the subsidies were externalised from the finances of power company. This means that originally, the financial deficit caused by the subsidies used to be absorbed by WAPDA. Since the creation of QESCOs etc., the financial gap has to be filled in by the provincial government. As most of the power consumed by Balochistan comes from outside the province, the amount is adjusted from the allocation to Balochistan from the federal divisible pool. This translates into lesser money being available for development scheme, resulting in Balochistan being in a perpetual begging position vis a vis the federal government. In summary, the 30,000 tubewell owners are prospering at the cost of the remaining 620,000 citizens, without contributing a single penny in the form of taxes to the provincial kitty.
The issue of small dams also needs to be considered more deeply. In actual practice, the silt coming with the flood water seals the bottom of the dams in a couple of years and stops the seepage of water to aquifer. The construction of dams should include construction of silt catchers and tree plantation in the catchment area but that will not occur as there is no mechanism available for I&P and Forest department to work together.