05 July 2004	Monday	16 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425

PESHAWAR, July 4: Nazims of six rural union councils of Nowshera and Peshawar have expressed concern over the chronic shortage of water at the tail-end of the Kabul River Canal System and have asked the NWFP chief minister to appoint competent officers for resolving the problem.

In a letter sent to the chief minister Akram Khan Durrani, nazims of the six union councils - Azakhel, Dagai, Urmar, Kurvi, Mohib Banda and Akbar Pura - stated that the government had failed in providing them irrigation supplies at the tail reaches of their respective areas.

They stated that their crops had been ruined last year affecting their earning. The nazims held the MMA government and the irrigation department responsible for their miseries and said that posting and transfer in the department on political basis had affected the entire system.

The nazims stated that nothing had been done despite their repeated meetings with the chief minister, MNA Qazi Hussain Ahmad, senior minister Sirajul Haq, provincial minister for irrigation Hafiz Akhter Ali and officials of the irrigation department.

They said that chronic shortage of water in the Kabul River Canal, especially in the Dagai and Azakhel Bala areas, had destroyed several thousands acres of land, adding that the Kurvi, Pabbi and Banda Mohib canals (KRC system) had dried up in the tail areas, affecting more than 10,000 acres of land.

Similarly, the drying up of the Hazar Khani canal in the Urmer Miana and Payan areas had affected more than 5,000 acres of land. The nazims reminded the chief minister that the KRCS had a command area of more than 80,000 acres in Peshawar, Nowshera and Charsadda districts.

They accused the government, especially the chief minister, of ruining the irrigation system in their areas. Stressing the need for rectifying the problem on an urgent basis, they said that they could not rule out the possibility of the occurrence of any untoward incident if nothing was done to mitigate their problem.