ISLAMABAD, June 2 : People’s Party Parliamentarians chairperson Benazir Bhutto has expressed concern over reports that the growers as well as people of areas in Larkana district have been adversely hit by shortage of water.

According to a survey, a large number of people were found suffering from kidney and skin diseases while a mysterious disease had caused death of and serious illness to cattle.

Reportedly, the local people and cattle, facing acute water shortage, have no option but to drink contaminated stagnant water.

In a statement issued here by PPP media cell, the former premier asked the government to declare the affected areas in Larkana and other parts of Sindh as calamity-hit areas and provide emergency relief to the people.

She said that the government was claiming to have built huge foreign exchange reserves and added: “A small part of the claimed foreign exchange reserves can be used to write off the debts of the poor farmers owed to the Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan”.

She also called upon the government to use part of the reserves to undertake emergency sinking of tube-wells throughout the water- starved areas.

Ms Bhutto said that during the PPP government, agricultural growth went up from zero per cent to seven per cent. However, she added, after the overthrowing of the party government, agriculture was badly hit, its production fell and poverty increased.

Similarly, the PPP chairperson said, the industrial labour was targeted and these days large scale unemployment was destroying the the youth.

She said that the boom in property prices and the stock exchange was fed by external factors brought about by the 9/11. She concluded that if the external factors were discounted, the real face of a failed and collapsed economy would become known.