BADIN, Nov 9: The government has decided to seize properties of 70 defaulting watercourses bodies if they fail to complete lining by December. Meanwhile most of the defaulters have agreed to return the money back to the department concerned, instead of carrying out watercourses lining.

This was decided at a joint meeting of revenue, agriculture officers and land owners held here on Thursday under the chairmanship of DCO Badin, Ahmed Bux Khokhar.

More than 100 abadgars attended the meeting.

The meeting was informed that a large number of the watercourse bodies in Badin district in collusion with the officials concerned had drawn huge money for lining work, but left the work half done and many of them had misappropriated the funds.

Only in Badin taluka an amount of Rs9.286 million was outstanding against the 70 watercourses bodies.

The notices were issued to the defaulters. However, DCO Ahmed Bux Khokhar warned the officials against showing leniency to the defaulters.

He directed the revenue and agriculture officials to ensure completion of the work and recovery of the outstanding amount to meet the target of lining watercourses.

Meanwhile, most of the defaulters reportedly gave in writing that they would return the amount outstanding against them instead of carrying out the work, because they could not complete the work due to high prices of the material including cement, bricks etc.