ENVIRONMENT-PAKISTAN: Save the Indus Plead Delta Folk By Zofeen Ebrahim*

Mohammad Ali Shah of Fisherfolk Forum, a grassroots organisation, estimates that "the delta population of Keti Bandar, which stood at around 700,000 until a decade ago, has now been reduced to 150,000 as a result of sea intrusion and decreased flow of fresh water from the Indus." Of the 42 settlements, 28 have already been inundated by sea. Tippin village falls in the Hajmaro creek of the Indus delta, in Keti Bandar, an 18th century port famous for its red rice export.

The Indus delta is the sixth largest in the world spanning approximately 600,000 hectares along the coast of Sindh province comprises 17 major creeks and innumerable minor ones and mud-flats. It has been declared a Ramsar Site and has a wildlife sanctuary.

The reduced flow in the delta is the direct result of diversion of the Indus waters by irrigation barrages built upstream, mainly in the province of Punjab. The first one, the Sukkur barrage, was constructed in 1923-32 by the British. But it was the construction of the Kotri barrage in 1955 and the Guddu barrage in 1962 that sounded the death knell for the delta.