10 December 2004	Friday	27 Shawwal 1425

KARACHI, Dec 9: Despite persisting drought-like situation in rural areas of Karachi, neither provincial nor the city government has prepared any plan to save livestock and fertile lands.

"Communities traditionally dependent on cultivation and livestock for their livelihood have desperately been urging the government to declare their drought-hit areas 'calamity-hit' but it seems as if the authorities do not even believe that Karachi does have a large number of farming families and they need help for their survival,'' remarked a councillor Mir Ghulam Sarwar Raees, who is a grower.

He revealed that these areas had been receiving no rains for the last seven years and most of the wells there had either dried up or the water they contain had turned brackish. The livestock farmers were re no more able to keep cattle head as they could not find fodder for their animals easily, he added.

Livestock is a major asset base for the inhabitants of arid zones but due to the lack of drinking water and vegetation in the areas, farmers cannot afford keeping animals. The city government has failed to come up to the expectations of the farming families living in hundreds of villages surrounding the city. Nothing has been done for them during its whole tenure.

A Gadap Town official said: "We approached the Sindh agriculture minister to seek seed and fertilizer for the drought-hit growers of this town but were disappointed to realise that the provincial government did not attach any priority to the farming communities of Karachi's rural areas." -PPI