HYDERABAD, Feb 2: Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim has rejected a claim of the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) that a large quantity of water goes waste in the province and stressed that studies have proved the necessity to release some water into the sea.

Talking to reporters after offering condolences to the family of noted journalist Qazi Saeed Akbar at his residence on Friday, the chief minister said that the release of water into the sea should not be taken as wastage. The province used less water due to winter season and desilting of canals, he said.

He said that some confusion existed about holding composite examinations of class-IX and X and that no final decision had been taken yet.

He made it clear that all illegal allotments of state lands would be cancelled. The allotment of land in Karachi and Jamshoro was illegal in many cases. Only in Karachi the government had cancelled allotment of land worth Rs80 billion, he said.

He ridiculed the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) over its fear of rigging in the scheduled by-elections for a provincial assembly seat in Kotri and said that the opposition had a habit of crying wolf before actually seeing the wolf.

The by-elections in Shikarpur, which were held in a free, fair and impartial manner, should be enough to assure that the polls in Kotri would also be transparent, he said.

To a question about torching of his and President Gen Pervez Musharraf's portraits in Larkana, he said that the incident proved how desperate and disappointed the opposition was.

About Sindh’s islands, the chief minister said that the Constitution said that the land located in the sea was the property of the federation. But it had yet to be clarified if the submerged land was also the property of federation or only the land located above the sea surface, he said.

He said that the islands were leased out to the Port Qasim Authority for operational purposes and no organisation had any authority to lease it out again or sell it to some other organisation.

The chief minister was accompanied by Sindh Minister for Revenue Dr Irfan Gul Magsi, Adviser to Chief Minister Nuzhat Pathan, special assistant to chief minister Dr Badar Channa and Madad Ali Sindhi.