Advancing sea, scarcity of fresh water threaten existence of deltic communities

[Naveed Yaseen]

Friday, March 13, 2009
By Jan Khaskheli

Karachi

Tayyab, an elder from the Bhoori Village, Khobar Creek still remembers the prosperous days he spent in the neighbourhood when Indus flowed near the area and people managed to earn a handsome income from paddy crops and livestock.

Those days are now a memory of the distant past. “You can observe the current situation with the sea advancing and the lack of fresh water,” he lamented. “We don’t have rice and livestock here. We are heavily dependant upon fish, which are also decreasing because of the shortage of fresh water in the river and the excess use of harmful nets (Boolo and Gujo) by influential locals,” he added.

A case study conducted by World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Keti Bunder Site Manager Zahid Jalbani on water issue reveals that communities living in the Indus Delta are gradually dying due to freshwater shortage. Sea erosion has roughly advanced upon two million acres of fertile land, forcing human population to leave their ancestral abodes.

Keti Bunder, about 200 kilometres south east of Karachi, stretches over 60,969 hectares and comprises of 42 Dehs (settlements) of which 28 have been engulfed by the intruding sea. Local communities heavily depend on natural resources such as fish, mangroves and rangelands. Some of the more affluent families have changed their source of living and initiated other marginal enterprises like poultry farming, producing beetle leaf and banana orchards.

Mai Khadija, resident of village Tippan of Hajamro Creek said that water is the main problem being faced by locals. “Fresh water was available at our doorsteps at the time when the Indus would flow up to Hajmaro Creek long ago. But now we purchase water from Keti Bunder Town at the cost of Rs2 per litre,” she added.

The WWF has now provided boat water tanker under its ‘Indus for All Programme’, which is supplying water to four villages, Tippan, Kharyoon, Phirt and Siddique Dablo, while separate fixed water tanks, each of 4,000 litres capacity, have also been installed in the villages. Boat water tankers with a capacity of 16,000 litres bring water from Keti Bunder, and supply it to water tanks in all four villages. The WWF has formed two-member committees in these villages to look after the operation and maintenance of the boat water tanker and tanks. The water tank receives water twice a month or more depending upon the community’s need. The village committee purchases water and supplies it to the fixed water tanks and then sell it to the communities at reasonable rate.

Jalbani said that his organisation has also constructed a water tank adjacent to Keti Bunder with a storage capacity of 10-12,000 litres which has a bio-sand filter. The tank was handed over to a local community based organisation (CBO), which accepted responsibility for the operation and maintenance of the tank. This water tank would provide drinking water facility to the inland as well as to the creek area communities.

A local fisherman Siddique Roonjho, living in the historic town for the last 40 years, said: “Keti Bunder was a port town which remained an export zone for red rice, mainly grown in the area. This is the third location of Keti Bunder, as the previous two were engulfed by the advancing seas. Keti Bunder was a commercial centre for more than 50 villages, however the remaining number of villages is around 20.”

Ali Mohammad Jatt, a local CBO activist said that earlier the community did not work together for the resolution of their problems, but now they have formed an organisation and met frequently to discuss and resolve various issues of mutual concern.

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