BADIN: Activists of Sindh United Party (SUP) staged a demonstration in front of the press club here on Wednesday in protest against acute shortage of water in the district for the past nine months.

The protesters led by the party’s office-bearers Pir Khalil Jan Sarhandi, Roshan Ali Buriro, Hyder Ali Shah and others also observed a sit-in on Shah Latif Road and raised slogans against Sindh Irrigation and Drainage Authority (Sida) and irrigation department officials.

The leaders said that the lingering shortage of water for irrigating land as well as for drinking purposes had increased frustration with the authorities concerned. The officers concerned failed to end the crisis caused by theft of water from waterways of Badin, they said.

They said the shortage of water had not only destroyed fertile land but also deprived a large population in coastal villages of the water they needed for survival. The situation was forcing people to leave their homes and hearths and shift to urban areas.

They said that influential landowners and jagirdars in connivance with irrigation department and Sida authorities had erected diversions in canals to divert flow of water illegally to their lands. The authorities concerned appeared helpless before the influential thieves, they said.

Published in Dawn, April 11th, 2019