Nasirabad’s Green Belt Turning Barren Due to Irrigation Department’s Incompetence; Farmers Block National Highway Over Severe Agricultural Water Crisis

DERA MURAD JAMALI (Daily Qudrat Quetta): The agricultural water crisis has intensified in Nasirabad Tambo, where hundreds of landowners and farmers have come out in protest, staged a sit-in at the Dera Murad Jamali Pat Feeder bridge and blocked the national highway. Traffic between Sindh and Balochistan remained suspended for several hours, with long queues of thousands of vehicles and passengers facing severe difficulties.

According to police, against the worst agricultural water crisis in Tambo — the largest agricultural area of Nasirabad — and the failure to cultivate wheat on millions of acres, hundreds of landowners and farmers, led by Mir Mazar Khan Umrani, reached Dera Murad Jamali in the form of a protest rally, staged a sit-in at the Pat Feeder bridge and blocked the national highway, suspending traffic between Sindh and Balochistan and causing long queues of thousands of vehicles.

The protesters said that Nasirabad’s green belt is being turned barren under a deliberate plan. The Irrigation Department claims that 5,500 cusecs of water is flowing in the Pat Feeder canal, whereas at present only 2,000 cusecs of water is flowing in the Pat Feeder canal, due to which billions of rupees in losses are being faced from the failure to cultivate wheat and other agricultural crops across lakhs of acres of Rabi canal and Tambo land. Cultivation aside, people are now unable to get drinking water.

On this occasion, slogans were also raised strongly against the Irrigation Department. Meanwhile, the newly appointed Executive Engineer of the Pat Feeder canal in the Irrigation Department, Shams, and SDO Zahir Mengal, reached the protest sit-in and, after successful negotiations with the protesters, got the sit-in ended, after which traffic flow was restored.