undue opening of link canal without any flood situation in the country meant that upper Riparians had been scheming to undermine the water consumers of lower Riparian areas.
He said there was no doubt major dams needed to be filled to increase the production of hydro-electricity to overcome the power crisis but that should not result in curtailment of due share of irrigation water in Sindh.
Muttahida Quami Movement’s parliamentary leader Syed Sardar Ahmed said ISRA should be made mandated to make sure that its every decision was unanimously agreed upon by all the provinces while the Centre may have the right to veto any controversial decision.
Opposition MPA Mehtab Akbar Rashdi said the recurring issue of CJ link canal on reflected the persisting trust deficit among provinces over the distribution of water.
She said the water interests of Sindh and Balochistan were not being guarded the fact that the representative of IRSA was making these controversial decisions needed to be looked into.
Another PPP MPA, Taimoor Talpur, said that the CJ link canal will be opened at a time when Thatta, Umerkot, Badin districts were facing a severe shortage of water.
Vulnerable establishments
The Sindh Assembly also unanimously passed into law the Sindh Security of Vulnerable Establishments Bill 2015 for ensuring physical and technical security arrangements against terrorism for vulnerable institutions in the province which include places of worship, hospitals, schools, government, non-governmental organisations, banks, wedding halls, hotels, fuel stations and shops.
Parliamentary affairs minister Dr Sikandar Mandhro said the bill was being moved to enact the necessary legislation for safeguarding and securing human lives and sensitive establishments in line with the National Action Plan.
The bill calls for setting up security advisory committee in each sub-division under the jurisdiction of deputy commissioner who will take help of the SSP concerned to identify vulnerable establishments in their jurisdictions.
He also introduced the Sindh Service Tribunals (Second Amendment) Bill 2015.
PSDP schemes
Answering a short-notice question, Dr Mandhro said at present 36 schemes were being implemented under the Public Sector Development Program of federal government, including the K-IV water supply scheme and S-III sewerage treatment project for Karachi.
He said deputy commissioners in each district had been directed to identify development schemes in 61 National Assembly constituencies in Sindh on which work will be started in the near future.
The chief minister’s special assistant on culture, Sharmila Faruqui, informed the House the provincial government had allocated Rs67.7 million for renovation, rehabilitation and repair of historical Shah Jahan Mosque in Thatta, out of which Rs 22.3 million had so far been spent.