LARKANA, June 7: The Sindh Abadgar Board demanded the government to supply electricity on flat rates to boost Sindh’s agriculture the way it was being provided in Balochistan.

It would not only bring under cultivation more land but also encourage farmers.

Gada Hussain Mahisar, vice president of the Sindh Abagdar Board, and the president, Sindh Balochistan Rice Millers and Traders Association (SBRMTA), while talking to this correspondent on Friday said that many Wapda-Scarp tube-wells were lying useless as a result of which productivity was being affected to a great deal.

Mr Mahisar said the announcement by President Pervez Musharraf for 25 per cent subsidy on tube-wells in Sindh proved only to be lip-service.

He said the waving of ADBP loans was yet to be realized.

He said on the one hand land erosion by the sea had eaten up thousands of acres of land and on the other paucity of water was leaving lacs of acres of land barren.

He said one lac acres of land would be without any crops in the command area of the Saifullah Magsi branch, and added that the majority of irrigation channels and tributaries down the Hakim Shah regulator of Warah Canal had no water.

He stood for the revival of the Sindh Seed Corporation and restarting the crash agriculture programme which President Ayub Khan had once launched.

He said downstream Kotri, the situation was graver still.

ACCIDENT: Three fisherman died when the vehicle they were travelling in fell into a ditch near the Hamal Lake, Warah, some 50 kms from here.