MIRPURKHAS, Aug 14: A large number of growers staged a demonstration near Nabisar More on Tuesday in protest against acute shortage of drinking water in different villages of Jhuddo taluka.

Carrying banners and placards, they raised slogans against the executive engineer of the East Jamrao Canal and blocked the Jhuddo-Mirpurkhas road. Traffic during the demonstration remained suspended for some time.

Addressing the participants, Mir Manzoor Talpur, Jam Kanbhoo and other protesters accused the irrigation officials of selling their share of water to landlords at the upper reaches of the canal because of which water had not reaching at the tail of the canal for the last 10 days.

They said the deputy commissioner of Mirpurkhas had also failed to take any action against those who forcibly opened the Dilari distributary and Jawaryasar and Kot Ghulam Mohammad minor canals which were closed under the rotation programme.

They lamented that for the last 10 days water could not be supplied to Jhuddo taluka as result of which over 200,000 people had been compelled to fetch water from hand pumps and far flung areas.

They regretted that reservoirs of water supply schemes of Jhuddo and Naokot were lying dry.

They said that landlords of Puran Shakh forcibly opened the closed canal on Monday that was later closed on the directives of the commissioner of Mirpurkhas.

They demanded deployment of Rangers personnel along the canal to ensure water supply to the tail-end areas.