LARKANA, June 16: Engineers of Rice and Warah canals at a meeting held here on Tuesday took note of ashortage of water in the canals. DPO Dr Badaruddain Ujjan, who presided over the meeting, was apprised about the water situation in the canals by the officials.
Warah Canal executive engineer Atta Mohammad Soomro told the meeting that the capacity of the canal, having a command area of 315,000 acres, was 6200 cusecs of water but at present it had a flow of 1200 cusecs of water.
He said they were trying to provide water through a rotation plan to save paddy seedlings nurseries but there was a need for early release of water. The Rice Canal executive engineer informed the meeting that the canal had a capacity of 13,500 cusecs of water but 6000 cusecs of water was flowing in it.
The canal, having a 550,000 acres command area, faced 80 per cent water shortage, he added.
PROTEST: Growers held a protest demonstration in the Mirokhan town here on Tuesday against shortage of water. Mohammad Hassan Tunio, Abdul Qadir Jagirani, Azizullah Soomro and others led a procession that emerged from the local press club and converged at the Arzi Bhutto Chowk.
The protestors accused Punjab of depriving Sindh of its water share. They criticized the Sindh government for its stand on the water issue. They regretted that many irrigation channels and distributaries of the Warah Canal, including the SKT Branch, Soonharo Shakh, Bhutta Minor, Alisher Shakh, Thul Shakh, Chatho Shakh, Kor Datoo and the Allah Bakhsh Minor, had no water.
They said paddy seedlings were drying up due to water shortage. They demanded early supply of water to save the rice crop.
JAILED: The court of special judge anti-corruption on Wednesday sent behind bars two primary teachers and a book shop owner after cancelling their pre-arrest bail.
Ghulam Sarwar, a headmaster, Khair Mohammed Pahore, a primary teacher and Irfan, a proprietor of a book shop in Shikarpur, were on bail after being booked in a misappropriation case. They had siphoned off around Rs47,000 by placing vouchers of purchase of books.
