LAHORE, March 8: Millat Party’s Punjab president and provincial minister for literacy and non-formal basic education Husain Jehania Gardezi has said that the time has come to give up politics of dams and let technocrats deal with the water shortage issue.

“If new reservoirs are not built, drought will be more devastating for Sindh and the NWFP as compared to Punjab for the latter has enough subsoil water for its crops,” he said while speaking at a seminar on “water shortage and its effects on agriculture”, held here on Saturday.

He said water resources were not being used efficiently. “We must adopt new technology to change our cultural practices regarding water consumption.”

He urged the farmers to adopt sprinkles and drip irrigation systems to combat water shortage.

He said that water equal to the capacity of five Kalabagh dams could be saved by cementing 25,000 watercourses yearly.