MULTAN, Nov 12: Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi has underlined the need to constitute a national water council to resolve issues with consensus. The PPP MNA was speaking at a seminar on 'Management of integrated water resources organized jointly by the CAP-NET and the Development Vision at Pastoral Institute here on Thursday.

Mr Qureshi said the military dictators had always coined controversial ideas to prolong their stay in power. "Kalabagh is the pseudo subject used by the present rulers to divert people's attention towards non-issues," he added.

He said the water issue in Pakistan had political, economic and social dimensions that could be sorted out only by politicians, provinces and technocrats. The water problem had first created rift among the federating units and now the people of Seraiki belt had started raising voice against the "policies of Lahore," he added.

He said the Seraiki belt was the heartland of the country's agro-based economy but its land had been turning barren due to the scarcity of water and unjust distribution of its available quantity between central and southern parts of Punjab.

He said the root cause of diminishing production of the agriculture sector was scarcity of water in the country rather than the shortage of cultivable land. New dams would have to be constructed but only after taking all the stakeholders into confidence. The federation would be affected if someone tried to construct dams using force, he remarked.

Barani University dean Prof Dr Mushtaq Chaudhry said according to the international standards every person should be supplied 3,000 litres of water per year. But, in Pakistan it was only 800 litres per person, he maintained.