22 July 2004	Thursday	04 Jamadi-us-Saani 1425

KARACHI, July 21: Opposition leader in the Sindh Assembly and Sindh chief of the Pakistan People's Party Nisar Ahmed Khuhro has demanded that the funds earmarked for the controversial Kalabagh Dam and Greater Thal Canal be diverted to public welfare projects.

Talking to MPAs Shama Mithani, Sajid Jokhio and Mir Mehboob Talpur, and some district nazims, who called on him in his chamber in the assembly building on Wednesday, he said now when the Parliamentary Committee on Water Resources had conceded that Kalabagh Dam could not be constructed, the allocations for the project should be utilized on some other projects.

He alleged that Gen Ziaul Haq, Gen Pervez Musharraf, as well as some other rulers used the dam project to blackmail people and make political gains. However, he added, people of Sindh forced them to abandon the same.

He pointed out that opposition to these controversial projects continued to increase over the years and it had become clear now that these were anti-Sindh and anti-people projects. -PPI