Bilawal urges Centre to review six canals project on Sindh River

PPP Chairman and former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has demanded the federal government to review the ‘six canals project’ under Green Pakistan Initiative on River Sindh and first take all the stakeholders into confidence regarding the project, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

In a video statement released on Thursday, Bilawal Bhutto maintained that he feared the project would become controversial if objections raised by Sindh and Balochistan were not heeded.

The PPP chairman advised the Centre not to initiate such projects which would become controversial like Kalabagh Dam project.

“Try to evolve consensus among provinces. We can make Green Pakistan Initiative a success,” Bilawal said and warned “Forcing opinion on others will result in political instability which will have negative impact on the economy.”

A few days back, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had tasked Deputy PM Ishaq Dar with addressing the reservations aired by Bilawal Bhutto. PM’s Adviser on Law and Justice Barrister Aqeel Malik had said that the prime minister had asked Mr Dar to contact the PPP’s leadership and address the allied party’s reservations. Malik further said that the deputy premier would soon hold a meeting with Mr Bhutto-Zardari in this regard, adding that some misunderstanding might have caused those reservations.

It may be recalled that during a media talk on Thursday (November 14), the PPP cha­irman had accused PML-N of reneging on commitments after the passage of the 26th Constitutional Amendment. He expressed frustration over the “disrespect” felt by PPP despite being in the coalition and unmet agreements between the two parties.

He had also hinted at a possible review of the PPP’s eight-month alliance in the Centre with the PML-N-led government in the PPP’s Central Executive Committee meeting next month.

Earlier this month, Sindh Abadgar Ittehad (SAI) had lamented that Sindh government’s objections to the construction of six canals under the Green Pakistan Initiative has apparently been ignored and this ambitious project supported by Punjab government had been allowed which aimed to irrigate arid lands of Cholistan region at the cost of agriculture of Sindh.

SAI President Nawab Zubair Talpur said in an open letter addressed to Bilawal Bhutto that he should personally take up the issue to stop the construction of the canals for the sake of livelihood of millions of people of Sindh. Talpur said phase-I of the project for the construction of 176km-long Cholistan canal and extension of other five canals being taken up under Green Pakistan Initiative was discussed at a meeting of the Central Development Working Party on October 12.

The meeting chaired by Federal Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal quietly referred the Rs231 billion project for Cholistan canal system to the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council without making the decision public, Talpur had claimed.

He said that the Sindh government’s objections had apparently been ignored. With the completion of Cholistan canal system and extension of five other canals, there would be acute shortage of water in Sindh as all the canals would draw water from the Indus River system.

He said that if all the six canals were constructed as per plan of the federal and Punjab governments then fertile lands of Sindh would surely become barren. “It is hence urged the PPP chairman take up the issue at personal level to stop construction of the six canals for the sake of livelihood of people of Sindh,” he added.