The Story of Ruined Belt of Indus

According to WWF The Indus River Delta forms where the Indus River flows into the Arabian Sea, creating a complex system of swamps, streams and mangrove forests. Reduced river flows are threatening the survival of many species found here, including one of the world's rarest dolphins.
The Indus River Delta is an important region for migrating water birds, and is an area rich in fish, including giant snakehead (Channa marulius), Indus baril (Barilius modestus), Indus garua (Clupisoma naziri) and Rita catfish (Rita rita). It is also home to one of the few species of freshwater dolphin, the Indus river dolphin (Platanista minor).

We visited Soon Mahaan, a belt near Latifabad and Kotri and came to know that due to lack of water the delta has been ruined and the flora and fauna has been damaged. According to Thiku Thakur, a local told us that some fifty years ago this area was well cultivated and there was abundance of fish, which was main resource of living in this area, people have been living for more than three centuries in this belt.

 But today everything has been ruined there isn't any fish as the river has dried up. The actual name of this belt was Naichani Mahaan, while there is another area called Dieghri Mahaan.
He said that there was abundance of fish and due to that this area got the name of Soon Mahaan, as the locals used to say that the area was as though a gold mine. But the delta was destroyed as that belt was used for drainage for people of Hyderabad, the contaminated water thrown in the river polluted the entire river, which ultimately damaged the flora and fauna of this belt.

         Lands Being Cultivated from Drainage Water of Hyderabad

We were told that this was the Kaatcha area and some three centuries ago Indus used to flow from here, there were lands of three major clans, Brohi, Chotta and Mir, in early days these lands were cultivated by the Indus River, but now they were being cultivated by the drainage water that came mainly from Latifabad.

Hyderabad Development Authority (HDA) was selling the drainage water to the local landlords, who use that contaminated and polluted water to cultivate land. HDA has designed six pounds in which the polluted water is gathered and is sold out to landlords for money.

We were also told that there was lack of water and life has become hard here, due that there was no fish to be found, while the locals have started other professions mainly farming. We were told that most of the farmers are Bhagri tribe or lower caste Hindus now. They have livestock but they are robbed by some influential, who come all the way from Kotri.

The life at Indus Delta is suffering and one of the major problems is the lack of water in Indus River, due to this the culture, flora and fauna, have been ruined and no one is bothering to look forth into this matter. In such a crisis mega dams would only add fuel to the fire and they would further ruin the Indus Delta.