MIRPURKHAS, April 30: About 50 per cent of Sindh’s agricultural lands have been rendered barren while growers at the tail-ends of watercourses are facing an enormous financial crisis, the provincial minister for irrigation, Syed Sadaruddin Shah Rashidi, said on Wednesday.
He was speaking to participants of an open kutchehry at the Girhore town.
Criticizing the increasing incidence of corruption in the irrigation department, the minister said that anyone — be it an officer or a grower — found involved in water theft would be sent to jail.
Referring to the causes of the shortage of irrigation water, Mr Rashidi said that the problem had become acute because of the insufficient rainfall in the province for the past several years.
Speaker of the Sindh Assembly Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah, while speaking on the occasion, said that the Mirpurkhas district was not getting its due share of irrigation water, adding that watercourses of the Doso channel had been tampered.
ARRESTED: The Samaro police on Wednesday arrested an absconder, Zaman Panhwar, after a raid in Rajwah Mori.
The police also recovered a Kalashnikov rifle, 213 rounds, three magazines and a motorcycle from his possession.
WATER THEFT: Six persons were booked on Wednesday by the Bodal Farm police on charges of water theft.
Mohammad Khokhar, caretaker of the lands of a local landlord Imtiaz Cheema, had lodged an FIR with the Bodal Farm police accusing Abu Bakar, Javed and four unidentified persons of stealing water from the watercourse on Mr Cheema’s lands.
He said that the accused had beaten him up when he had tried to restrain them.
SUICIDE: A 24-year-old peasant, Lalji, son of Yousi Ram, on Wednesday committed suicide by ingesting pesticides in the Hatim Talpur village, Tando Allahyar taluka.
He did not survive despite attempts of the doctors at the Mirpurkhas Civil Hospital to save his life, where he was brought in a precarious condition.
OMBUDSMAN’S OFFICE: The Sindh government had approved to set up a regional office of the provincial ombudsman in Mirpurkhas.
Aijaz Qazi, director of the provincial ombudsman, visited Mirpurkhas for setting up the regional office the other day.
WAPDA: Chairman of Wapda Zulfikar Ali Khan has set up a committee to resolve the power consumers’ grievances in the interior of Sindh.
The committee would be headed by the chief executive of Hesco while presidents of chambers of commerce and industry Mirpurkhas, Hyderabad, Sukkur, and Shikarpur, would be its members.
Meanwhile, president of the Mirpurkhas Chamber of Commerce and Industry Abdul Khalique Khan has condemned the prolonged and unannounced load shedding, which according to him lasted between three to six hours on a daily basis.
He asked the people to submit their complaints to the committee.
DPSC: Dr Rubi Dharamdas was elected member of the District Public Safety Commission (DPSC), Mirpurkhas, as two other lady members withdrew from the contest.