March 15, 2006	Wednesday	Safar 14, 1427

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THATTA, March 14: People’s Party Parliamentarians legislators, foreign delegates, historians, writers and delta experts, who gathered at the Dhoolah Darya Khan bridge on the Indus River on Tuesday to mark the World Rivers Day, rejected construction of more dams on the river.

The gathering was organized by the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum.

They demanded through resolutions that the government should abandon Kalabagh dam and all other dams on the Indus River and constantly release 35 million acre feet water downstream Kotri for the survival of the Indus Delta.

A resolution said that the government should compensate affected people of the LBOD and the RBOD and stop their displacement by providing jobs to them within the deltaic region.

It said that the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank should implement projects in the delta only after consultation with the local people.

MPAs Sassui Palijo and Humera Alwani said that the government had rendered irreparable losses particularly to Sindh.

They said President General Pervez Musharraf and his engineered PML had made life of people miserable.

They said sky-rocketing inflation, forcible implementation of Kalabagh and other dams and canals, injudicious NFC award, political victimization, loot and plunder of the ruling class have brought the province at the brink of socio-political devastation.

The legislators said that poverty, suicides, unemployment and illiteracy had affected the lives of people.

PFF chairman Mohammad Ali Shah and district president Gulab Shah narrated the glowing past when the Indus River constantly flowed up to its delta and Kharochan and Keti Bundar were known to be the Kashmir of Sindh.

French delegate Mr Aixis Fossi told the audience that after going through geo-political and social situation of the Sindh delta, he was of the view that any construction on the Indus would periodically ruin its delta.

He said that ever worsening situation would never be controlled if required quantum of water in the Indus was not allowed.

He said that he and his survey team comprising Ms Merry Criston Prik, Stephen Paul and Grad Feling would apprise the rest of world about rapid deterioration of the Indus Delta, deprivation of its inhabitants of basic rights.

Tahira Ali, Aziz Jafrani and Dr Mohammad Ali Manjhi, Gulab Shah and Sattar Lohar also spoke on the occasion.