THATTA, July 31: Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim has said that the persistent shortage of water for the last couple of years is one of the major reasons behind shrinkage of livelihood resources and unemployment in the province.

He was talking to journalists at the residence of Mirpur Bathoro Taluka Nazim Arbab Rameezuddin Memon in Darro after inaugurating a mosque on Saturday.

The chief minister said that agriculture was the backbone of economy of Sindh but it had been destroyed by the acute shortage of water.

He pledged to continue to fight for the rights of Sindh and recalled that he had opposed the controversial project of the Kalabagh dam in the meeting of the parliamentary committee on water resources.

Answering a question about alleged obstructions being raised by his government in the election campaign of the opposition in Tharparkar, he said that the opponents of Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz were facing a definite defeat and that was why they were levelling allegations.

He said that after he took over as the chief minister, work of laying stone boulders on the 130-kilometre Mirpurkhas-Mithi under-construction highway was under way, adding that the opposition leaders were not happy with the on-going development work.

When the chief minister was told that Farid Jamali, the son of former prime minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, in connivance with the deputy secretary of services and general administration department, Nazir Brohi, had encroached upon farmland in Mirpur Sakro taluka, he promised to look into the matter.

He summoned the executive engineers of lower and upper Pinyari divisions of the irrigation department and directed them to ensure the water supply to tail-ends of water channels.

About the leaving of the united Pakistan Muslim League by Pir Pagara, Mr Rahim said that the Pir had ruled out the fall of the Sindh government after his pullback, and insisted that it would remain intact.

About the attack on Mr Aziz by a suicide bomber in Fateh Jang, Punjab, he said that such terrorist acts would not obstruct the ongoing campaign of Mr Aziz, who, he predicted, would become a symbol of prosperity of future's Pakistan.

Mr Rahim said that his government was striving hard to overcome law and order problems, minimize poverty rate, maximise literacy rate particularly in the rural areas and usher in a new era of prosperity in the province.

Earlier, Thatta District Nazim Syed Shafqat Hussain Shirazi, MNAs Ayaz Shah Shirazi and Mohammad Ali Malkani and Provincial Adviser for Forests Syed Aijaz Shah apprised the chief minister of the problems of the district.

The chief minister promised solution of the problems and appreciated development schemes being carried out in the district.

Later, he left for Mithi.