MULTAN, July 4: An organization called Chashma Lok Sangat has planned a ten-day foot march to mobilize the people in Tuansa area of Dera Ghazi Khan district against payment of water tax. Speaking at a press conference here on Monday, the CLS activists said that the march would start from Basti Dau on July 6 and terminate at Shahdan Lond on July 15. “The marchers will go to every nook and corner to highlight the miseries of the people affected by the Chashma Right Bank Canal,’ they added.

They said the people displaced due to the construction of CRBC in Tuansa and Shahdan Lond areas of the district were yet to be compensated. Hundreds of local people living in 24 settlements along side the west bank of the CRBC were forced to migrate to other places, while 150,000 acres of land had become barren due to the flood which had hit the area since construction of the canal.

Similarly, they said, 20,000 acres of land had forcibly been taken into possession without paying compensation amount to the owners for the construction of the CRBC. “The officials of the department concerned rather demand bribes for paying price of the land,” they alleged.

They said there was no justification for taxes when the people were not being provided the promised facilities. The CRBC irrigation system was also defective that caused a loss of millions of rupees annually to the people. “That is why we are going to launch a peaceful civil disobedience campaign,” they argued.

Prominent among those who spoke on the occasion were Mushtaq Gadi and Zafar Haiderani. The CLS people also showed a 27-minute documentary to the newsmen to highlight the plight of the CRBC affected people.

Meanwhile, the activists of Sindhu Tarla, a representative body of the communities living along side the river Indus from Tuansa Barrage to Guddu Barrage, also held a press conference to draw attention towards their problems.

Complaining against the contractors of the fisheries department, they alleged that these contractors had trapped them in a vicious cycle of bonded labour. They also opposed cultivation of crops in the river belts saying the phenomenon had damaged the ecology of the wetlands.

They pointed out that the provincial irrigation department had cancelled all the lease agreements viz-a-viz river lands including those allied with the Tuansa Barrage in November 2002 in order to protect wildlife, but the influential people, in connivance with the department’s local officials, were still growing crops.

They said they were forced to leave the area by the contractors assigned the task to carry out upraising and reconstruction work of Tuansa Barrage. “We had been living there for generations but the contractors have dislodged us only to construct a colony for the project workers.”

They said the displacement was not mentioned in the original plan of the reconstruction work. Though the contractors had given them the alternative land for houses but its proprietary rights and compensation amount for the demolished houses had yet to be given, they added.

They demanded fishing licenses for being the oldest inhabitants of the area, besides imposition of a ban on crop cultivation up to an area of five kilometres on both sides of the river.

They also opposed the construction of more dams and barrages on the river, saying this would cause displacement of thousands of people who had been living with the ‘Sindhu Sayein’ for the times immemorial.