KARACHI, Sept 15: Leader of the opposition in the Sindh Assembly Nisar Khuhro has contested Gen Musharraf’s claims about the Greater Thal Canal project and said it had jolted the entire country.

Speaking at a news conference in his chambers on Monday, Mr Khuhro narrated various stages of the project and said that it was included in Wapda’s ‘Vision 2025’ which was presented to him in 2000. Ground-breaking ceremony of the Rs30.5 billion project was held on Aug 16, 2001.

He pointed out that the project was approved by the ECNEC on Feb 28, 2002, much after the ground-breaking ceremony.

Mr Khuhro said that the project had been rejected by the federal government in 1976.

On May 20, 2002, he said, a certificate was obtained from Irsa on the availability of water. Sindh had not agreed to that, he claimed. He pointed out that no certificate was produced before the ECNEC while construction had already started.

Mr Khuhro also referred to various allocations for the GTC project. According to him, in 2001-02 Rs500 million were allocated out of which Rs268 million were spent.

In the following year, the allocation and expenditure stood at Rs1,200 million.

For 2003-04 an allocation of Rs1 billion had been made but the expenditure remained only to the tune of Rs2.9 million.

The opposition leader said that out of the total expenditure of Rs1.5 billion, an amount of Rs500 million had been deposited with the Punjab government although the project had been started by the federal government.

He pointed out that roughly about 4.8 per cent of the total cost had been disbursed so far which was bitterly opposed by the people of Sindh.

Referring to Gen Musharraf’s emphasis on forgetting the past and his assurance that Sindh’s interests would be protected, Nisar Khuhro asked: “Should it be taken as an apology for executing Zulfikar Ali Bhutto; or for killing thousands of innocent Sindhis during the MRD movement; or for denying people of Sindh their rights and calling them inefficient?”

Mr Khuhro also criticized the government’s campaign to drum up support for Kalabagh Dam and GTC much against the collective wisdom of the three federating units just to please only one province.