‘Irsa should withdraw water availability certificate for Cholistan project’

HYDERABAAD: A meeting of Sindh Abadgar Ittehad (SAI) was held in Hyderabad, in which Central President Nawab Zubair Ahmed Talpur opened a session on the Irsa certificate for the Cholistan project.

The growers’ body strongly condemned the issue of the 0.450 million acre feet of water law certificate for the Cholistan project by Indus River System Authority (Irsa). The SAI president said that Sindh is being converted into a desert to settle the Cholistan desert and demanded withdrawal of the certificate.

The SAI members said that when there is a threat of serious water shortage in the country, issuing certificates for water at the same time is a conspiracy to create differences and confrontation between the provinces.

The growers said that the Cholistan project would have a negative impact on the society of Sindh, and it would cause agriculture, water and economic conditions of province to deteriorate, and migration would be the only alternative with environmental problems.

The growers’ body vowed that we will not give up our rights, the people of Sindh will definitely not accept this plan and the peaceful protest movement will continue against it. The SAI rejected the income tax on agriculture and said that taxes had already been imposed on agriculture, and higher taxes would destabilize the province’s agriculture sector. The agriculturalists of Sindh will never accept this tax because it is economic terror, it said.