LAHORE, Feb 12: Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Illahi has said that the country is facing severe water and electricity shortages and five big dams will have to be constructed soon to meet the growing demand for water and power.

Talking to a delegation of visiting journalists from Sindh here on Monday, he said if the dams were not constructed immediately, the country would face a severe crisis.

He said that there were some objections to the construction of dams from certain people and efforts were being made to accommodate their concerns.

He urged people opposed to the dams not to politicise a technical issue.

The chief minister said that a lot of development work had been carried out in the last four years in Punjab, particularly in education and health sectors.

He said over Rs62 billion, almost 11 per cent more than its share, had been spent in the Seraiki belt.

He said a survey showed that over two million additional children had been admitted to schools during this period.

He said that about 900 retired army officials had been appointed to monitor education and health sectors. They have been given motorcycles and their job was to visit school and health centres in rural areas to ensure teachers and doctors were discharging their duty.

He said that the menace of sectarianism had been controlled in Punjab and there had been no major incident in the past four years during Muharram.

He said persons who were carrying terrorist activities in the name of religion were neither serving Islam nor the country. These were misguided people, he added.

Chaudhry Pervaiz Illahai said that the PML was the largest political party in the country and over two-thirds of MPAs in the Punjab Assembly belonged to it.

He said that the PML would contest the elections with its partners and would emerge victorious and form the government in the Centre and provinces.

Sindh inter-provincial coordination minister Sohrab Sarki, who is leading the journalists team, also spoke on the occasion.