20 January 2004	Tuesday	27 Ziqa'ad 1424

LAHORE, Jan 19: Farmers from the Punjab would not accept any decision of the parliamentary committee on water issues unless they were consulted and made party to any consensus-building effort, representatives of farmer bodies said on Monday.

The farmers were unanimous in castigating what they explained "bureaucratic trend of hijacking their issues". Kisan Board Pakistan secretary-general Ibrahim Mughal said the committee was holding a meeting in the city on Tuesday to evolve a consensus on water issues. But, he regretted that no farmers' body had been invited to the meeting.

"It is strange that the bureaucracy is trying to evolve a consensus on water issues without involving farmers, who are the main users of water. It is still to realize that water belongs to soil, which is owned by the farmers. Without including growers on board, it cannot and should not try to evolve any decision because it will neither be owned by the farmers nor implemented by any one," he said, asking for how long could farmers let others decide their future.

He said history seemed to be repeating itself in the country within a very short span. He recalled: "The federal government, assisted by bureaucracy, sold three rivers to India in the mid-sixties under the Indus Basin Water Treaty. Now the farmers are paying the cost of the federal's folly. They were not made party to that decision then nor are being taken on board now for making decisions and reaching a consensus on new reservoirs or distribution problems."

The KBP, he said, would boycott all the proceedings of the meeting of the parliamentary committee in protest against decision to exclude them from the meeting.

According to the Farmers Associates Pakistan's Farooq Bajwa, the committee itself should take note of the problem and invite the farmer bodies from the Punjab for taking direct input from them. By doing so, it would not only get new perspectives on the issue, but also give validity to its decisions, he claimed.

Farmers from the Punjab produce over 75 per cent of the agricultural output of the country. It is not to claim that farmers from the other provinces should be ignored.

The Punjab government has not been consulting farmers on any of the water related issues - from distribution to canal closure. "It is better advised to invite all the farmer bodies, not a handful of people who suit it for different reasons. One farmer has been invited to the meeting in his personal capacity and the other being member of the Punjab Irrigation and Drainage Authority," he said. An agriculture chamber official claimed that the country was going through a critical stage as far as water issues were concerned.