MUZAFFARGARH: The Rs8 billion Muzaffargarh canal lining project, which was approved by the PPP government, has started after a two-year delay.

Officials said the government had halted the work in 2013 but the federal government had released funds for it now. They said the project, which would bring 400,000 acres of waterlogged land under cultivation, was at the execution stage because its feasibility, project approval and bidding had been done in 2012.

Project’s chief engineer Tahir Khosa said the canal lining would be completed within two years.

The seepage of water from mud walls of the canal has waterlogged 400,000 acres in Muzaffargarh and the process is still going on, according to the Agriculture Department.

Former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and the then foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar had inaugurated the project at Mahmood Kot on March 15, 2013.

PPP workers claim that Benazir Bhutto had promised to complete the project during a rally at the College Stadium two days before her assassination on Dec 25, 2007.

Published in Dawn, January 31st, 2015

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