LAHORE, June 19: The Greater Thal Canal, though a provincial project, has been approved by federal bodies like the ECNEC and the Indus River System Authority, claimed Punjab Minister for Irrigation Amer Sultan Cheema here on Thursday.

He was addressing a press conference to clear the confusion in the wake of Sindh’s strong reaction to the project. The project, he said, was in no way aimed at harming Sindh or reducing its share of water in the national pool. The Punjab would use its own resources for the project, and no one should have any doubts in this regard, he maintained.

The project has been in federal hands since its approval. The PC-1 was prepared by the Water and Power Development Authority and approved by the ECNEC and Indus River System Authority.

Sindh, he said, had a majority in Irsa when the Greater Thal Canal project was approved. In fact, the project was designed in 1975 and submitted to the ECNEC. But it was delayed till the finalization of water shares of the provinces. Besides getting Irsa’s approval for water allocation, the ECNEC also approved the project in 2002.

Some MPs from Dera Ghazi Khan, who were present on the occasion, said that an Indian lobby was active in Sindh trying to block any development work.

While responding to a question whether members of the Sindh Assembly who had passed a resolution against the Greater Thal Canal should also be considered a part of the alleged Indian lobby, Mr Cheema, who seemed to have endorsed the MPs’ views by saying that an Indian lobby was working hard to create confusions among the provinces and had now started spreading rumours of amends to the Indus Basin Water Treaty, said he was talking about those who were agitating on roads and holding demonstrations and protests against the project.

Secretary (Irrigation and Power) Javed Majeed came to the minister’s rescue and interpreted the latter’s remarks as a reflection on water crisis in the country rather than an accusation.

The country needs new development projects to meet water shortage. For the purpose, new dams have to be built under the 1991 water accord because the two main dams of the country have been silting up and losing capacity. Time has come to take some positive steps for building reservoirs, otherwise inter-provincial disputes would only increase. The 1991 water accord must be implemented in letter and spirit and objections on clauses that do not suite any particular province be avoided. The Greater Thal Canal project is a part of the 1991 water accord, approved with the consent of all the four provinces and the federal government, he said.

The minister complained that all water projects intended for the Punjab had been politicized by a particular lobby. The Greater Thal canal has been approved by all the authorities concerned, but even then it was being targeted as something anti-nation or anti-federation. The Punjab will not get a drop of water from the Kachi Canal and Rainee Canal despite the fact that both passed through its territory where they would cause all the negative effects like water-logging and salinity.

The Punjab, he said, had always played the role of a big brother and made sacrifices for other provinces only to save the federation. Giving an example, he said Punjab had gifted 5,000 cusecs of water from its own share to Sindh for the cotton crop in the years 2001 and 2002.

A number of parliamentarians had observed that the gestures of Punjab had never been appreciated by the beneficiaries. But all of them have been stopped from making public statements for the sake of inter-provincial harmony.

On a question regarding the possibility of termination of the project, the secretary and the minister said that the project had been approved by all those concerned and was a part of the 1991 water accord. If the country had to implement the accord, it would have to implement the canal project as well, they maintained.