Manchar Lake polluted, needs attention
By Aziz Sanghur
KARACHI- Manchar Lake one of the largest lake of Asia is polluted due to salinity and water logging, which is a threat to the livelihood of about 25, 000 population, who depends on are fishing.
The marine life is badly destroyed. The catch is decreasing day by day. The affected fishermen community forced to migrate from the Lake, leaving their ancestral profession, fishing.
The Right Bank Outfall Drainage (RBOD) is dropping the salinity and water logging to the Manchar Lake. The sweet water is turning into brackish and fishes are dying to salted water.
The Main Nara Valley Drain (MVND), constructed at the time of the Sukkur Barrage now brings a considerable supply of saline water into the lake and has had a detrimental effected on Manchar Lake. In the future, the lake is likely to receive more drainage effluents by construction of a drainage network under the Right Bank Outfall Drainage (RBOD) schemes.
Manchar Lake is located in Jamshoro and Dadu Districts, about I8 kms from Sehwan Sharif. It is a vast natural depression flanked by the Khirthar hills in the west, the Laki hills in the south and the river Indus in the east.
Manchar Lake has been supporting various economic activities. It provided livelihood for a large number of fishermen, irrigation water for various crops and aquatic plants. The lake could also have supported the tourism industry if its beauty had been maintained.
The lake is spread over 64,800 acres, having 25, 000 populations that live on their boats. It is unique in the world where fishermen community lives in the lake.
Their children are unfamiliar about the land traditions. They have their own traditions to celebrate. They also arrange their marriage ceremony in the boats. They serve their guest in the lake over the boats, and decorate their boats during the marriage ceremony.
A twelve-member family including children and wives live only on 19 feet squares long and 14 feet squares wide boats.
The fisherwomen produce their children on the boats. During the birthing the untrained midwives perform their services, which is risky for the women. It is reported that several women were died during the childbirth.
Prevalence of tuberculoses TB, anemia, malnutrition, skin disease, gastroenteritis and water bome disease is widely reported. More than 80% of the women and children are sick.
A local fisherman, Haji Qadir Bux Mallah said that health facilities are available in Shah Hassan and Bubak town. In Shah Hassan there is a government dispensary, which offers almost no health facility, he added.
He said that in Bubak a Basic Health Unit exits, with two medical officers and no lady doctor. Fisher communities several deaths have occurred but health authorities have never taken any notice or bothered to intervene, he alleged.
Talking to this scribe, a head of the family, Pir Muhammad alias Piral, 50, said that their family could not live on the land because they would die like fish. "When I was familiarized about the world. It was fish and birds. I did not know about the land" remarked Piral.
He said that I suggested their children they would not change their forefather's profession. "The Manchar Lake is our mother, which is feeding us. It is our duty to love with it. Please write about my mother that is dying" feared Piral, while talking with this scribe.
The fishermen complained against the contractors, which bounded them to sell their catch on half rate against the market rate. The contractor system was introduced some years ago.
The fishermen loan the money from the contractor for building the boats and nets. The contractors also take their interests. The bounded fishermen have no right to protest against the contractors.
There is no law to protect the bounded fishermen from the contractors. The concerned officials are aware about the contractor system. But they did not pay any attention in this regard.
The fishermen communities are caught in the debt trap of these middlemen, who force them to sell the catch at rates as low as one third of the market rates.
Many fishermen are in virtual slavery of the middlemen who are the only source of loans at the time of need. Fishermen are also facing another threat from the contractor system.
Under this system they are supposed to surrender 25% of their catch to the contractor for continuing their ancestral fishing rights in the lake. Implementation of this contractor system has been temporarily reversed after a strong reaction by these fisher communities. If re-implemented, the decision would destroy the poor communities.
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