PTI criticizes Khursheed for ‘giving away Sindh’s water to Punjab’

SUKKUR: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s provincial chapter has severely criticised Federal Minister for Water Resources Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah for giving away 30pc of Sindh’s share in Indus water to Panjab in a crisis situation.

Sindh PTI senior vice president Syed Tahir Hussain Shah said on Saturday that all stakeholders must take a serious notice of the minister’s statement on the floor of the upper house of parliament.

Tahir Shah said that the minister also repeated his confession while speaking to the media after the Senate session.

He said PTI was seriously concerned over his statement which proved that the persisting water crisis in Sindh was caused by Pakistan Peoples Party by allowing Punjab to take away 30pc of its [Sindh’s] share in Indus water.

Tahir Shah pointed out that Sindh’s agriculture sector, which had already been devastated owing to PPP’s flawed policies, was on the verge of destruction due to an acute shortage of water and certain other issues.

He referred to media reports that PPP’s influential figures had long been drawing excessive water from Indus and its canals for their own lands thus depriving other landowners of their due share.

Small growers, peasants, tillers and farmers had been crying for water but this unfair distribution of water had never been stopped despite protests by political and other opponents of the ruling PPP.

The senior PPP leader, Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah, knew very well that Sindh was currently facing a crisis situation due to unavailability of adequate water for drinking and irrigation purposes. “Under which provision of the Constitution, he allowed Punjab to take away Sindh’s water,” the PTI leader asked.

He urged people of Sindh to raise their voice against the minister’s betrayal to them on water issue, saying that water was lifeline of Sindh’s agriculture sector as well as its people.

He wondered that the Sindh chief minister and his government remained silent over Khursheed Shah’s confession. They would, otherwise, keep speaking against “theft” of Sindh’s water by Irsa and Punjab.

“Sindh’s people and soil will never forgive Khursheed Shah over his act of surrendering this province’s water share to Punjab,” Tahir Shah said.