M.Mohsin
The natural gas emanating from Sui in the Dera Bugti region was relentlessly used by the entire country for decades, to the extent that natural gas in Pakistan came to be synonymous with Sui gas.
Sui gas fueled the stoves in homes across Pakistan and powered factories, but the fate of the Sui region itself couldn’t be altered.
The Kachhi Canal project was undoubtedly a tremendous gift from the people of Pakistan to this region in exchange for utilizing natural gas.
Upon completion of Phase 1 of the Kachhi Canal in 2017, a canal spanning 373 kilometers reached Sui from Punjab, opening up 72,000 acres of land for irrigation.
There was an even greater need in this region for canal water to reach the fields than for agricultural irrigation, as it not only provided drinking water but also allowed livestock to drink for the first time.
When agriculture began with the Kachhi Canal in the Sui area, local farmers stopped migrating, cultivated the land, and in the season before the 2022 floods, ten lakh tons of wheat and up to a lakh tons of mustard were produced from the canal’s areas.
In 2020, during his visit to the Kachhi Canal, then Chairman WAPDA Lieutenant General Muzammil Hussain (Retired) remarked that it was pleasing to note that cultivation had commenced on 52,000 acres of land under the command of the Kachhi Canal in Sui and Dera Bugti, which is a plan for positive change in the lives of people in these backward areas.
However, the floods of 2022 created breaches in the canal at several places, halting the water supply.
These breaches have not been fully repaired yet, causing the poor farmers in the Sui area to not only suffer economic problems but also to be forced to migrate again due to poverty.
The current Chief Minister of Balochistan is from this area, and it is requested that he raise the voice of these farmers and coordinate with the government of Pakistan and WAPDA authorities to expedite the repair of the breaches in the Kachhi Canal. So that water can flow again in the canal soon, making life easier for the poor farmers.
The flow of water in this canal has become a matter of life and death for the people of this area.
