Manchhar Lake, the Largest Lake of Asia

The Government has never taken serious steps for revitalization of Asia's largest freshwater Lake,Manchhar.

Boat Village Manchhar which does not exist any more

Rashid Hussain

Hyderabad: Manchhar is considered as the largest freshwater lake of Asia, situated on the western bank of the river Indus, approximately five kilometers away from the city of Sehwan Sharif, district Jamshoro.

Rain is Its main source of obtaining freshwater through streams of Kirthar mountainous range, Nai Gaaj is a hill torrent that emanates from Khuzdar district of Balochistan and after passing through the plains of Kutch, it eventually enters Manchhar Lake. Nai Gaaj remains dry throughout the year except for three to four months of monsoon when Manchhar gets water. The area of the lake fluctuates with the seasons from as little as 350 kilometers to as much as 550 kilometers.

The Lake was created in the 1930s when the Sukkur Barrage was constructed on the river Indus, it used to irrigate thousands of agricultural land owned by residents living beside the Lake, tons of fish used to be caught and supplied to different parts of the country and abroad. In 1932, the British colonialists had built the Main Nara Valley Drain to control floods in southern Sindh and to protect the low-lying areas of the province, was remodeled in 1982, called Right Bank Outfall Drain (RBOD) and the water body was turned into a drain to carry industrial runoff and agricultural effluents into the Arabian Sea which did not work and was redirected to Manchhar. It was a miscalculated assessment that freshwater from the river Indus and the torrents would gush down the Kirthar hills in the rainy season, and dilute the effluents. Unfortunately these both sources didn't provide enough water to clean the effluents.

The lake water, which was a source of irrigation, drinking purpose for people and animals; livelihood of Fishermen and villagers depended solely on this lake which was polluted and resulted in mass migration, the economic state of the region, in general, and of people living around the lake, in particular, affected badly. A variety of fish started to dwindle, and now it's almost nothing. Lake water became so poisonous that even animals did not like to drink somehow, no fruitful measures have been taken so far, to make the Lake neat and clean again. Construction of Nai Gaaj Dam is vital for the storage of rain water because after Manchhar attains its peak level before or during monsoon season, water flows from Nai Gaaj , often devastates floods protection-Bands and inundate remaining agricultural lands and Villages. Dam construction has been an issue for the last three decades.

Supreme Court, at the start of March 2019, ordered both the federal and Sindh government to ensure timely release of required funds as well as adhere to the timeline for this much-needed dam. Earlier the Apex Court has also ordered the federal government to release funds for dam construction after it was told that the project was shelved after spending a staggering Rs. 10 billion on it. The provincial government had apportioned funds for the dam in its budgetary allocations which usually lapsed.

The court also said that the provincial government had conveniently forgotten the 2010 flood when its flow was towards the place where the dam had to be built.

As the water condition has got better, Some non-governmental Organisations have released different types of seed into the lake, in the hope to get the lost environment back when the poor fishermen would get the same decent amount after selling out the fish in abundance.