LARKANA, Nov 16: Some influential people have allegedly converted three water storage ponds of a rural water supply scheme into fish ponds in Yarodero village. The Village Development Association of Yarodero in a letter to the local government secretary on April 6 had pointed out the encroachment and despite the intervention of the DCO Qambar-Shahdadkot, the authorities had failed to get the encroachment vacated.

Sources told Dawn on Thursday that 20 years ago the scheme was put in operation but later due to non-functioning it was handed over to the VDA that successfully operated it.

The secretary of the VDA said that motors, pumps, pipes and doors were stolen and even the bricks were taken away.

The superintendent engineer of the public health engineering of the Larkana circle, Ram Chand Sanjira, had asked its executive engineer in Qambar to undertake a survey of the area.

The team after inspection confirmed that some people had dismantled the storage tanks and bricks were taken away while the ponds were lying abandoned.

The scheme was completed in 1988-89 and was handed over to the VDA in 1998-99 to not only make it operational but to supply drinking water to the village.