HYDERABAD, April 23: Poverty ratio in Sindh has touched 45 per cent mark while water shortage and wrong government policies have made growers poorer as now they are unable to buy even fertilisers and seeds.

These observations were shared by Sindh Abadgar Board the President Abdul Majeed Nizamani while quoting the Asian Development Bank’s report.

He was speaking at a seminar organised by the Association for Research and Development of Rural Areas (Arada) on Sunday at the Hyderabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry on the "Causes of poverty in Sindh and its resolution."

“The situation has reached to a level where neither water is available for ablution nor money to bury the dead,” he said.

Mr Nizamani said though Sindh produced 48 per cent of gas and 62 per cent oil and other minerals for the country but the people of the province were in the grip of hunger and poverty.

Recalling the last year’s import of sugar, he said the country needed only 200,000 tons while imports went up to 1.1 million tons just to please the import/export mafia, black-marketers, politicians and bureaucrats.

Though the Sindh Abadgar Board last year had informed the government of ample wheat yet it imported the commodity at the time when the crop was being harvested in Sindh, he said.

Mr Nizamani said the province had a command area of 13 million acres of land, 1.2 million acres delta and 800,000 acres of forest, but trees were being chopped ruthlessly.

In regard to the protocol given to a nazim, he said it was bigger than what is given to the Indian premier. “How can an economy run on sound footing if 6,000 policemen are deployed on VIP duties,” he questioned.

Talking on foreign investment, lawyer Ayaz Latif Palojo lamented the law and order situation, extremism and extortion, saying they kept entrepreneurs away from making investment here.