LAHORE, July 2: The Punjab Water Council on Tuesday slated what it called political opposition to the Greater Thal canal from some parties from Sindh.

In an emergency meeting, the PWC unanimously agreed that the opposition to the canal was highly irresponsible and a deliberate attempt to push the country further into irrelevant controversies over the settled issues. Nowadays, when national integrity and inter-provincial harmony were the need of the hour, these narrow-minded and prejudiced politicians had chosen to oppose water for thirsty people of Thal and deprived farmers of the area. Farmers were pursuing the goal of making country self-sufficient in food production but their efforts were being downgraded by ‘drawing room politicians’ from Sindh.

The MQM, the JI, the ANP, the SNF, the SDF, the PPP-SB, the PML-N, the PTI and the PONM and the Millat Party had opted to deny vital drinking and irrigation water to the people of Thal. The PWC, in its meeting, also appealed to people to oppose these so-called politicians in the forthcoming elections so that they realized their mistake and did not behave in a manner they were doing now.

The meeting praised President Musharraf for leading the country to water development path and asked him to check those trying to unneccesairly raise settled issues and damage the harmony of the country. Instead of opposing Thal canal projects, these politicians must try to reach a consensus for more development projects so that the country could be saved from impending water disaster.

The GTC was not the only project undertaken by the present government but Kachi and Rainee canals, Gomal Zam, Hingol and Mirani dam were also there. Instead of opposing one of them, these politicians must join hands with patriotic people trying to build more reservoirs.

The PWC also demanded immediate construction of the Kalabagh dam to store six million acre feet of water going down stream Kotri.