HYDERABAD: Plan to build dams on River Indus opposed: Musharraf’s address in Sindh
Bureau Report
HYDERABAD, April 14: Expressing dismay over the remarks of President Musharraf at his Sindh public meetings that water shortage in River Indus is natural and nothing can be done about it, the Sindh Water Committee has demanded that no more dams and canals should be constructed on the river.
In a joint statement issued here on Sunday, the president of the committee, Rasool Bux Palijo, and general secretary, Abrar Kazi, asked if there was no water for the immediate needs of Sindh, why the Thal canal was being constructed at a cost of Rs30 billion.
They said that the acute shortage of water had created despair among the people of Sindh and the greater Thal canal would convert the fertile land of Sindh into a desert.
They reminded the president that even the anti-Sindh 1991 Water Accord was not being implemented, which was evident from the fact that while Sindh had been facing a crisis of even drinking water for the last three years, Punjab had been producing record crops during that period.
They demanded that efforts should be made to save the lands of Sindh from devastation.
STPP: Strongly reacting to the address of President Gen Pervez Musharraf at a public meeting at Thatta, the president of Ponam, Sindh, and chairman of the STPP, Dr Qadir Magsi, has aid that the construction of dams on River Indus could only benefit Punjab while those dams would ruin Sindh.
In a statement issued here on Sunday, Dr Magsi said that Sindh was against any dam and the Sehwan barrage and what it needed was its due share of water.
He said that the people of Sindh could no longer be hoodwinked.
He said that if Sindh was given the control of its resources, it would become one of the most prosperous regions of the world.
The STPP leader said that on the one hand, the rulers were talking about decentralization of powers and on the other hand Sindh was being ruled through decrees from Islamabad.
He deplored that even the coal of Sindh was being given in the control of federal authority.
He demanded that the natural resources of the province should be handed over to Sindh.
THAL CANAL: By supporting the construction of the Thal canal, President Gen Pervez Musharraf had made it clear that he is the representative of Punjab.
This was said by a central leader of the Jeay Sindh Mahaz (J), Hashim Khoso, while speaking at his party’s protest demonstration held outside the press club here on Sunday against the construction of greater Thal canal and influx of outsiders into Sindh.
He said that the main idea behind the referendum was to handover all the powers to the army and Punjab.
He said that Punjab offered strange logic for depriving Sindh of its due share of irrigation water. When Sindh demanded its share of water it was told that there was an acute water shortage but when demands were made to stop the construction of Thal canal, Punjab reacted that the canal was necessary to use unutilized water going into the sea, which according to it, was being wasted.
Mr Khoso said that the Sindhi nation was united against the Thal canal and the influx of outsiders into the province, as these issues were matter of life and death for it.
Referring to the influx of outsiders, he deplored that the Sindhis were being turned into a minority in their homeland.
He demanded that the outsiders, whether they had come from other countries or other provinces, should be denied the right to vote and repatriated to their countries and provinces.
The protesters carried banners and placards inscribed with slogans against the Thal canal project and the influx of outsiders, particularly those from Punjab, into Sindh.
