11 February 2005	Friday	01 Muharram 1426

HARIPUR, Feb 10: Leaders of different politico-religious parties at an all parties' conference on Wednesday demanded that the federal government earmark a certain amount from the income of Tarbela and Khanpur dams , rehabilitate the closed industrial units of Gadoon and Hattar Estates and fix a quota for the inhabitants of Haripur.

The APC was arranged by Muttahida Ulema Council of Haripur and attended by office-bearers of JI, JUI-F, PPP, PML-N, PML-Q, PDP, union nazims, lawyers and party workers.

Speakers said that Tarbela and Khanpur dams were constructed in the territorial jurisdiction of Haripur 'in the national interest', but each successive government deprived the people of this area of their constitutional right to royalty from the income of these projects.

They said that the people of Haripur had sacrificed their source of livelihood and culture for electrifying the country but in return they were rewarded with abject poverty and unemployment.

They said that water from Khanpur dam was being supplied to Rawalpindi and Islamabad, and the government was earning millions of rupees annually from selling water, but the people of Khanpur area were not getting the amount of water they were entitled to have under the Rawaj-i-Aabpashi, nor the government was spending any money on developing the area, they complained. They demanded that the government announced a package of incentives and royalty.

The APC also rejected the proposed construction of Gravity Flow Water Supply Scheme upstream on river Dorr in Abbottabad, alleging it to be an attempt to murder 800,000 people of Haripur.

Javed Qureshi, Sardar Saleem, Shafiq Awan, Tahir Qureshi, Qari Ghulam Mujtaba, Qazi Gul Rehman and Seth Asmat were prominent among those who spoke on the occasion.