June 7, 2005	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 29, 1426

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CHITRAL, June 6: About two hundred families living in Garam Chashma have warned the government that they would migrate to Afghanistan if channels irrigating their fields were not repaired. They said scarcity of irrigation water had destroyed their crops and fruit gardens on about three thousand acres.

Hundreds of inhabitants of the valley, led by Meer Shah, Sikandar Khan and Khosh Daood Shah, reached Chitral Press Club after covering a distance of about 100kilometre. They said that the provincial irrigation department had constructed a channel in their valley which developed breaches and cracks as a result of the flood in October last year and became useless. But the department did not rehabilitate the water course. They said that hundred percent population of the valley was dependent on agriculture and farming and they were facing famine-like situation. They alleged that annual maintenance and repair funds and special grants were embezzled by the irrigation department

They demanded of the government to initiate action against the officials of this department and provide commodities of daily use to them on emergency basis or else they would migrate to Afghanistan.

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