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| 11 December 2004 | Saturday | 28 Shawwal 1425 |
PPP legislator opposes Kalabagh dam
ISLAMABAD, Dec 10: People's Party Parliamentarians' MPA Humera Hamid Alwani here on Friday opposed construction of the Kalabagh dam.
She said it was feared that Badin and Thatta would be destroyed by seawater within a decade if the required water from the River Indus was not released to the area.
Speaking at a press conference at the PPP media centre here, Ms Alwani said that of the 3.7 million acres of coastal built of Thatta, 1.25 million acres had been submerged by seawater because of unavailability of sweet water for one decade.
"If seawater continued to engulf the coastal belt at the present ratio, there will be no Thatta and Badin on the map of the world after another decade", Ms Alwani said.
She said while the government was spending a huge amount of money on construction of the Thal canal to provide irrigation water to 1.2 million acres of land in Jhang, Laiyya and Bhakkar, it was doing nothing to save 1.2 million acres of land in Thatta from being submerged by seawater.
The PPP leader called upon the government to judiciously distribute water among the provinces. She said 10 to 12 years ago, Thatta used to get bumper crops of sugarcane, banana and rice because the required water was provided to the area from the Indus.
At that time, she added, about 35 million acre feet of sweet water of the Indus was available with the area to channel into the sea and stop the advances of salty water to the coastal area.
She, however, regretted that the district was not getting the required water for last 10 to 12 years, rendering a huge area of land barren. She said farmers in the area were living below the poverty line.
Ms Alwani said the mangrove forest of the Indus delta in her constituency was also becoming extinct due to the non-availability of sweet water. She alleged that Rangers had occupied all 42 small lakes in Thatta and Badin and they were not allowing local fishermen to fish there.
She alleged that the Rangers, who were supposed to protect people, were depriving the area residents of their source of livelihood. She said the fishermen had left with no option but to migrate.
She said despite lodging repeated complaints and protests with the Sindh government, nothing had been done to save the source of livelihood of the fishermen or protect the land from seawater.
The PPP leader said due to the step-motherly treatment of federal and provincial governments, 85 per cent people of Badin and Thatta districts were living in extreme poverty. She said the area also lacked in health and education facilities.
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