MIRPURKHAS, June 1: Concerned citizens have called upon the authorities to take notice of the sale of the historical building of Government Sindhi Primary School, Gharibabad. The building has been housing the school since 1930.
International Human Rights Commission country chief Muzammil Abbas Shirazi and Save School Committee members Ghulam Mohammad Lakho and Imran Ali Ansari announced at a press conference here on Sunday that they had decided to move court to save the school building.
They said that before the partition, the school was named as Seth Lalchand Khanchand Municipal Primary School and its building was in the name of Gornomal. After the partition, a nominal rent was paid to the custodian department.
They said that in 1972, an immigrant from India, Habibullah Siddiq, claimed the building on account of settlement and was awarded its ownership rights. However, he did not get physical possession of the building which continued to house the school.
They said that recently Abdul Wahid, heir of Mr Siddiq, had sold the school building. They had received information that a verbal deal had been made under which Rs500,000 would be paid to the EDO education for handing over possession of the school building to its new owner during summer vacations, they said.
They said that they were ready to pay market price for the school building. They called upon the chief minister and education minister of Sindh and the district nazim and DCO of Mirpurkhas to take immediate notice of the matter and order an inquiry into it.Over 600 students, including girls, have been enrolled in the school during the current academic year.
WATER: Sindh Farmers Organizations Council chairman Javed Junejo has expressed concern over injudicious distribution of irrigation water in Mirpurkhas and Umerkot districts despite discharge of 14,500 cusecs of water into the Nara Canal.
He said in a statement that in recent past when there were shortages, water was supplied to each distributary of the Nara Canal for a week in a month under water rotation programme. Now when more water was being discharged into the canal, he said, no new rotation programme according to available quantity of water had been announced by the irrigation department.
He alleged that some elected representatives were interfering in the distribution of water as a result more water was being supplied into Khipro Canal whereas Mithrao and Jamrao canals were being ignored.
Due to heavy pressure of water, a breach had recently occurred in the Khipro Canal and crops over hundreds of acres had been submerged.