KARACHI, Feb 26: The emerging inter-provincial dispute over water-sharing dominated proceedings of the Sindh Assembly on Wednesday during the debate on an adjournment motion against the construction of greater Thal canal project.

The House had on Tuesday allowed the opposition leader’s adjournment motion out of turn to discuss the provincial government’s failure in persuading the Centre to stop construction work on the project, widely regarded as harmful to Sindh’s interests.

The tone was set by Dr Sikandar Mahendro of the opposition Peoples Party who dwelt at length the historical background to Sindh’s opposition to the project and claimed that Punjab never cared for this smaller province.

He traced the origin of conflict to the 19th century and said that Sindh had been suffering water shortage ever since the Punjab started raising dams, barrages, etc.

He also referred to the Indian irrigation commission’s recommendations where it was stressed that as long as the people of Sindh had objections, no dam should be constructed.

Mr Mahendro pointed out that Punjab had, even at that time, opposed the construction of Sukkur Barrage on the Indus River. He also referred to Rao Commission’s report and the water agreement of 1945 between Punjab and Sindh. According to the latter, 75 per cent of water from Indus was meant for Sindh and the remaining for Punjab.

Referring to various clauses of the agreement, Mr Mahendro said that owing to the denial of Sindh’s legitimate share, the province had lost 700,000 acres of cultivable land.

He said that if such violations continued and projects like Thal canal were imposed on Sindh, then there would be no trace of Indus River below Kotri.

Although Irfan Gul Magsi of the treasury benches conceded that the project was detrimental to the interests of Sindh, yet he tried to give the debate a colour of party politics rather than advocating the case of Sindh.

Defending the controversial 1991 water accord, Mr Magsi termed it a “consensus” agreement and put the onus on the ministerial committee’s decision in 1994 for the foul play with Sindh. He contended that Mustafa Khar and Zafar Laghari of the PPP were signatories to the agreement. Under that indenting point for Sindh was Taunsa instead of Chashma. He asked the PPP to raise the Thal canal issue in the National Assembly also.

Mr Hameedullah of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal claimed that the project was being undertaken without the approval of ECNEC. He said that because of such projects, vast areas of Sindh were becoming barren and civilization was being affected adversely owing to the march of desert and rush of the sea. He was of the view that the project was being executed to provide water to the lands owned by senior military officials.

Akmal Laghari favoured implementation of 1991 accord and stressed the need to make Indus River System Authority (Irsa) stronger. He regretted that despite Irsa chairman’s note of dissent, work on Thal project was under way.

He suggested that a delegation comprising members from both sides should visit Islamabad and Punjab to present Sindh’s case in order to get the project shelved. Ali Nawaz Shah said that the project was aimed at destroying Sindh. Similar views were expressed by Jam Tamachi who also appealed to the MQM chief, Altaf Hussain, to play his role in getting the work on this project stopped.

Syed Murad Ali Shah of PPP took an issue with Mr Magsi and asked him to stop blaming PPP and focus on the greater interest of Sindh.

He referred to the former Secretary Irrigation, Muhammad Idrees Rajput’s letter addressed to the Secretary, Ministry of Water and Power in which he had dissented with some of the contentions of Punjab regarding the follow-up actions of the water accord.

“The statement of system-wise ten daily allocations of the province of Punjab attached with the summary for the Council of Common Interest includes the allocations for the greater Thal Canal which is an un-sanctioned project. We do not agree with the inclusion of these allocations in the ten daily statement at this stage,” the letter read.

Mr Shah also placed on record another communication of Mr Rajput where he had maintained that “Ten-daily allocations of the provinces were presented before the Council of Common Interests and it was agreed except the inclusion of the allocations of Greater Thal System which is unsanctioned project.

Mr Shah pointed out that in this communication, Mr Rajput had requested that para 6(3) be deleted from the minutes of resume of the Inter-Provincial Ministerial Meeting held on May 2, 1994.

The SDA’s Imtiaz Shaikh said that instead of making speeches in the assembly, the elected representatives should take up the matter in the Council of Common Interests.

While most of the speakers from treasury benches vowed not to compromise interest, they did try to create confusion.

Mohammad Rafiq Engineer of PPP also criticized Thal project. Jam Madad Ali of PML-F claimed that Thal canal dispute would be resolved by the present government. Speech by Abdul Sattar Ansari of Muttahida Qaumi Movement was not directed at the consequences of Thal canal project on Sindh. He rather chose to attack PPP. Nuzhat Pathan of PPP and Shazia Ata Mari called on the members to rise above party politics and oppose the project for protecting the interests of Sindh.

Begum Gulzar Unnar said that 1991 water accord was good for Sindh whereas in 1994 PPP government concluded another agreement which was detrimental to the interest of Sindh.

Ayaz Soomro also called for joint efforts against the project. Dr Sohrab Sarki described it as a project against the interests of Pakistan.

The Speaker, Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah, adjourned the proceedings until Thursday when the debate on the issue would resume.