Khawaja Zaheer Ahmed - PDMA

British India and causes were probed. The Sindh
Government had contemplated redesigning of this barrage,
to restore and upgrade its original capacity. During normal
floods, increased water flows dredge and remove heavy
sedimentation from river side of the bunds that creates
required space to accommodate additional waters. But
medium to high floods do not permit any room to attend to
minor problems in the bunds. Thousands of acres of land
encroached upon by local influentials in the ‘Katcha’ area of
Sindh that blocked the natural water flows create additional
issues during flood seasons.
(iii) Mr. Idrees Rajput, another former Secretary, Irrigation
Department, Government of Sindh and still consulted by it,
contributes regularly to ‘The Daily Dawn; he stated that on 8-
9 th August he was especially flown from Islamabad by
Governor’s plane to Sukkur where he strongly advocated
against breaching of Aliwahan Bund. In essence, he
deposed that in record high 1976 floods, 1.2 million cusecs
of water passed Indus at Guddu Barrage without breaching
Tori Bund; in 1996, only 500,000-600,000 cusecs caused it
to breach, that was repeated during 2010, “Super-flood”,
though lower than 1976 recorded highest. According to him,
Aliwahan Bund downstream of Tori, even if breached would
still not have prevented overtopping of Tori. He attributed the
collapse of protective embankments to obvious weaknesses
in proper maintenance of the main and loop-bunds,
professional inefficiency, negligence, leakages/ corruption,
all listed in the operational Bund Manual, update till 2008.
These were compounded further by poor law and order
situation besides questionable staff appointments by
methods fair and foul that exacerbated routine departmental
Page 60 of 211