HYDERABAD, April 22: Responding to the statement of the Sindh irrigation minister that farmers should cultivate their crops keeping in view the availability of water, the president of the Sindh Abadgar Board, Mr Majeed Nizamani, has demanded that the water accord 1991 should be implemented in letter and spirit.

In a statement issued here on Saturday, the SAB president said that the minimum the government could do was to keep the farmers of Sindh informed about the availability of water in Tarbela, Mangla, Kalabagh, Chashma, Taunsa, Panjnad, Guddu, Sukkur and Kotri barrage and ensure judicious distribution of water.

He demanded that pending applications for the installation of tube-wells in Sindh should be disposed of immediately and tube-wells should be installed within one week.

Mr Nizamani demanded that wherever there was acute shortage of water in Sindh, it should be supplied for human and animal consumption within three days.

HESCO: The chief executive officer of the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company, Mr Maqbool Ahmed Khwaja, has made it clear that there is no load-shedding anywhere and those who are protesting against alleged load-shedding are in fact defaulters.

In a statement issued here on Saturday, he said that teams of vigilance committees and task force are taking action against power thieves and defaulters whose power supply has been suspended and they have also been imposed fine.

He said that those people who were complaining about load-shedding were in fact defaulters and their power supply was being cut.

The chief executive said that the company was facing tremendous difficulties in taking action against the power thieves.

He said that Hesco was a commercial organization which was purchasing electricity and than selling it to the people.

He said that an amount of Rs3.59 billion was outstanding only against the provincial government departments.

Giving details, he said that an amount of Rs809 million was outstanding against the Sindh government, Rs448 million against autonomous organizations, Rs249 million against local bodies, Rs606 million against the district governments and Rs1475 million against taluka municipal administrations.

He said that the power supply to these departments was being disconnected because they had failed to clear their arrears even after negotiations.

In addition to this, the Hesco chief said that Rs520.4 million was outstanding against the federal government departments and a staggering amount of Rs8.51 billion against the domestic consumers.