HYDERABAD: Speakers at a programme have criticised formation of Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) and corporate farming project and stressed that all important decisions should be taken by parliament in a parliamentary system.

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) vice chair Qazi Khizer said at the event titled “Advocacy meeting on local communities’ right to natural resources” organised by HRCP on Wednesday that a government was custodian of resources and it was never considered a proprietor. People were real owners of these resources and assets, he said.

He said that multinational companies would get hefty amounts in earnings through SIFC. Corporate farming was anti-environment and anti-government and it was deplorable that all resources of Sindh including water and land were being handed over to federal government whereas the Punjab’s sweet groundwater remained sole property of the Punjab, he said.

He said that establishment should learn from its past mistakes. Most of Tharparkar’s land was considered enemy property because Hindus who were owners of those lands had migrated to India, he said, adding that today those living there were not owners of their lands. Thar Coal project did not belong to people it had rather destroyed Thar, he said.

Founder of Safco, Suleman Abro, said that important decisions should be taken by parliament in a parliamentary system which was working in this country. People of Sindh had launched a historic struggle against corporate farming and for Indus river, he said.

He said that Sindh would have to take the path of result oriented struggle. Many villages in Sindh remained unregistered and many were dismantled in Karachi, he said.

He said that weak democracies were not able to enforce their writ and a strong parliament was essential to ensure implementation of people’s decisions, he said.

High Court Bar Association Hyderabad’s general secretary, Israr Chang, said that the Punjab had been committing robberies over Sindh’s water even before the creation of Pakistan. After Pakistan’s inception Punjab deviated from 1945 agreement with Sindh, he said.

He noted that now India was threatening of blocking Pakistan’s water while Pakistan claimed lower riparian had the first right over use of water in trans-basin waters’ usages but it denied the same right to tail-end province in the country.

He said that corporate farming was a project for settling outsiders in Sindh and regretted that Sindh’s landowning class lagged behind in struggle for the protection of Indus. Sindhis were deprived of cities and businesses in the name of evacuee property and now lands were being snatched from them, he said.

Advocate Sajjad Ahmed Chandio said that SIFC covered several subjects. Its companies would work in farm sector and could procure heavy machineries to vacate lands, he said.

He said that Sindh faced 50pc water shortage and even then millions of acres of new lands were to be irrigated. Corporate farming was not acceptable, he said.

National Party Sindh president Taj Mari, Prof Ismail Kumbhar, HRCP council member Khushhal Das, Nadeem Shah and Nabi Bux Sathio also spoke at the programme.

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2025