HYDERABAD, Nov 9: Leaders of the public opinion have severely criticised the agricultural policies of both the federal and provincial governments and demanded that growers who suffered tremendous losses in the recent heavy rains and breaches in the LBOD should be paid adequate compensation.

They demanded that growers of Sindh should be exempted from payment of land revenue, water charges, agriculture tax and agricultural loans and the proposed construction of water projects on the Indus River should be abandoned.

They also condemned the planned sale of two islands of Karachi and demanded that the ownership of the Sindh province over these islands should be acknowledged and they should be returned to Sindh.

They were speaking at a seminar organised by the Sindh Abadgar Tehrik at the local press club on Wednesday.

The chief of Awami Tehrik, Rasool Bux Palijo, said that great harm had come to Pakistan from its own elected representatives who always supported dictatorship. He said elected representatives had maintained a discreet silence when tens of thousands of innocent Bengalis were being killed in former East Pakistan and elected representative did not resign following the army operation in Balochistan.

He lashed out at so-called champions of democracy and said that they did not utter a word when land of Sindh were given to outsiders and the water share of Sindh was stopped.

He said the doors of employment had been opened only for outsiders and the entire educational system of the province had been destroyed.

He called upon leaders of the public opinion to create awareness among tens of millions of Sindhi-speaking people about their rights as well as the prevailing state of affairs.Mr Palijo said that time had come for the people of Sindh to get rid of so-called nationalists, waderas and feudal lords and the so-called champions of democracy.

The president of the Sindh Abadgar Tehrik, Dewan Arumal, said that the agriculture sector of Sindh had been completely destroyed and the sugarcane production had come down from 400 million tons to 200 million tons. He said that under a planned conspiracy, the crops, produced in Sindh were being imported whereas the land of Sindh was being allotted to foreign companies.

He regretted that sugar mill owners of Sindh by refusing to start the crushing season on time had openly violated the Sugar Factory Control Act but no action under the law had been taken against any sugar mill owner.

Awami Tehrik leader Ayaz Latif Palijo in his speech said that the rich agricultural land of Sindh was being rendered barren and unproductive due to discharge of poisonous water into Sindh by other provinces. He believed that this was being done purposely so that the land of Sindh could be sold out to foreign companies at throwaway price.

He said that tribal disputes in the upper Sindh had also destroyed the economy of the province. He said the PPP in the past had the mandate to free the system from the establishment on a permanent basis but it failed to avail of this opportunity.

Sindh Water Committee leader Nazeer Memon said that due to non-release of water to downstream Kotri, sea water had eaten away 1.6 million acres of rich agriculture lands. He pointed out that water was not being released downstream Kotri for the last 14 years and added that the World Bank and the federal government were privy to the destruction of Sindh's agriculture sector.

Others who spoke on the occasion included Ghulam Nabi Morai, Ms Nazeer Qureshi, Vishnu Mal, Fareed Kalhoro and Imdad Panhwar.

ROTATION: The executive engineer of the Naseer division announced on Tuesday the rotation programme.