QUETTA, Feb 3: The Government of Punjab has reportedly objected to the proposed construction of a barrage, controlled by the Government of Balochistan, on River Indus at Mithan Kot.

According to reliable sources, the Punjab government claimed that it would submerge over half a million of canal irrigated land if the proposed barrage was built at the site in Mithan Kot.

The federal government had already conceded the demand of the Balochistan government to build a separate barrage allowing off-take of canal water for the province directly from the Indus River system.

The federal government proposed to construct a big canal, Kacchhi canal, irrigating over 0.62 million acres of highly fertile land in Sibi and Kacchhi plains of Balochistan. The formal announcement to this effect had already been made by President Gen Pervez Musharraf

Balochistan had been complaining to the Sindh and federal governments that it had never received its rightful share of canal water from the Indus source controlled by the Sindh government.

For this reason, the federal government decided to give administrative control of the proposed barrage to Balochistan to which Punjab is objecting on technical grounds.

The Punjab government claimed that over half a million acres of canal-irrigated land would be affected, and finally submerged, if the barrage was built at Mithan Kot, and had proposed the site of Taunsa in Dera Ghazi Khan.

In case of Mithan Kot barrage, the distance of canal running in the Punjab territory would be around 54 kilometres while from Taunsa, it would be more than 177 kilometre costing more to the public exchequer.

The observers of the Balochistan scene thought that it amounted to vetoing the project by increasing the cost of construction or making it economically unviable.