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HYDERABAD, May 30: Sindh Chamber of Agriculture president Syed Qamaruzzaman Shah has observed that farmers will be deprived not only of irrigation water but also of drinking water after construction of the Kalabagh dam. He was speaking at a reception hosted in his honour here on Sunday on the receipt of the prime minister’s award for his services in the field of agriculture.
He claimed the Tarbela Dam had been constructed for storage of water but it was being used for generation of electricity.
Mr Shah said due to negligence of authorities concerned, silt had accumulated in the dam which had given an excuse to the rulers to build the Kalabagh dam. He claimed that two canals would also be taken out from the dam.
He said water was available in the River Indus at present but the irrigation department had resorted to a rotation programme which had affected sowing of Kharif crops.
CITIZENSHIP: Former Sindh Minister for Law and Minority Affairs Muzaffar Sadiq Bhatti has said the assurance given to the MQM by the president that those who had entered Pakistan up to 1986 will be given citizenship and Biharis will be issued NICs was a violation of the Pakistan Citizens Act, 1951, and 1952 rules as well as the Sindh Permanent Residentship Rules, 1971, and NADRA rules.
In a statement issued here on Saturday, he said the constitution did not give any authority to the president to tamper with country’s laws and rules in presence of the assembly. He observed that parliament alone enjoyed this authority.
He said the step was aimed at converting Sindhis into a minority.
Meanwhile, the Sindh Taraqqi Pasand Party also strongly reacted to the assurance given by President Gen Pervez Musharraf to the MQM.
In a statement issued here on Sunday, a spokesman for the party, Nandlal Malhi, said that by placing such demands before the president, the MQM had been fully exposed.
He claimed that under the law, foreigners could not be granted citizenship.
TRIBUTE: Tribute was paid to the late journalist Abdul Karim Abid at a condolence reference held at the press club here on Monday.
Speaking on the occasion, senior journalists Parwano Bhatti, Zahir Ahmad, Ali Hassan, Abdul Hafeez Abid and Shahid Shaikh said the late Abid was a bold journalist and a stickler for truth.
They said he had given 55 years of his life to journalism.
Press club president Hamid Shaikh was in the chair.
