THATTA, Oct 22: Villagers of thec Haji Usman Khaskheli village, union council of Onger, about 64km off Thatta, have appealed to President Gen Pervez Musharraf to initiate an open inquiry into a Rs2.7 million water supply scheme which is lying idle due to the inefficiency of the public health engineering authorities.

Nazim Nabi Bakhsh Babar, Naib Nazim Khalil Ahmed Khaskheli and councillor Mohammad Aachar on Tuesday took a team of journalists and NGO workers from Thatta to the far-flung site to apprise them of the ground realities.

Showing an unfinished pump house, the public representatives said that Iqbal Shaikh was awarded the contract under the Drought Emergency Relief Assistance Programme, but violating procedural rules, he erected the room with machinery costing Rs1.6 million prior to the water test.

Later, the water was found to be brackish and, therefore, unfit for human consumption, they said, alleging that the contractor shifted the machinery elsewhere at night.

Khaliq Durrani, contractor of Hassan Jakhro village water supply scheme, disclosed that he had purchased machinery from Iqbal Shaikh after getting a statement on stamp paper that the machinery was his own and not stolen.

The public representatives said the only other source of water was the K. B. Feeder which was over nine kilometres away from the village and getting water through it would cost double the amount.

As the schemes were executed under the DERA programme, it was impossible to get the estimates revised, they added.

The leaders said the villagers were now compelled to procure water on very high rates through tankers.

When contacted, the district officer, public health engineering department, executive engineer Shams Shaikh said there were about 400 schemes under the DERA programme, and at many places, the department was facing hardships due to political interference.

The DCO, Thatta, Usman Panhwar, who is also the monitoring and evaluation manager of development schemes in the district, was, however, not available for comment when this correspondent tried to contact him.

ELECTROCUTED: Dr Suresh Kumar, a private practitioner in Sujawal, was electrocuted in his house on Tuesday morning.