Sahiwal books 294 farmers for water theft in five months

SAHIWAL: The irrigation department in Sahiwal has booked 294 farmers and other individuals for allegedly stealing irrigation water over the past five months, according to figures attributed to the local irrigation department and carried by Dawn.

Those booked include officials of the Saif Power Plant at Qadirabad and office-bearers of political parties and farmers' organisations, the report said. Cases were registered in several villages of the district. Dawn did not give a village-by-village breakdown, the sections used, or the quantity of water involved in each case.

Lower Bari Doab Canal Executive Engineer Talha told Dawn that the provincial government had directed the irrigation department to take strict action against water theft. He did not say how many of the 294 had been arrested, formally charged or convicted, and no court outcome was reported.

Separately in Bahawalpur, the deputy commissioner ordered joint field operations against canal water theft, UrduPoint reported. That report did not name the deputy commissioner, identify which departments would take part, say how often the operations would run, or state what penalties would apply.

Sahiwal sits on the Lower Bari Doab Canal system and Bahawalpur in its own irrigation zone. Neither report said whether the two actions stem from a single provincial directive or are unconnected local moves.

Canal water theft usually involves illegal cuts in the bank or siphon pipes and pumps used to draw water out of turn. It is a recurring grievance in Punjab's canal-irrigated districts, where farmers at the tail end of a watercourse often say they receive less than their sanctioned share while upstream landholders take more.

Neither the Punjab irrigation department's head office nor the Sahiwal deputy commissioner's office had issued a statement on the 294 figure at the time of the report, and the number could not be independently verified. The figures cover a five-month period; the report did not specify the starting date.

Dawn's tally is for one district only. No province-wide figure for water theft cases, or for action taken against those booked in the same period, was available in the reports.