Farhatullah Babar terms new canals in Punjab ‘elite capture’

ISLAMABAD: The Human Rights Cell of the Pakistan People’s Party has strongly criticised the construction of new canals in Punjab, labelling it “elite capture” of state resources.

“With overall water scarcity, the building of new canals in the Punjab, threatening Sindh, is thoughtless, irresponsible and detrimental to the federation and must be shelved,” said former senator Farhatullah Babar, President of the Human Rights Cell of the PPP, at a press conference at the PPP Central Secretariat in Islamabad. He was accompanied by other members, including GS Maliaka Raza, vice president Zulqarnain Ashghar and Samina Salam.

Babar said the River Indus is the lifeline of Pakistan, threatened by fast melting of glaciers of the Hindukush-Himalaya range, drastically reduced rainfall, exploding population, the absence of a national water management policy and the vagaries of climate disaster. He said the availability of freshwater per capita has reduced from 5000 cubic metres at the time of Independence to less than 1000 cubic metres per capita at present, rendering Pakistan one of the water-stressed countries in the world. Some say that the project has not yet started, while others claim that it is an old project for which IRSA has already issued a water availability certificate. He said that the IRSA does not have its federal member from the lower riparian province of Sindh and is not a legal body. “Playing up a non-certificate by a non-legal body is befooling the public,” he said.

He also questioned corporate farming and said, first, it was touted as ‘cooperative farming’ as if it were a land development project for the benefit of peasants. “Then it was changed to ‘corporate farming’—the very word smacks of bourgeoisie capitalism and elite capture at the expense of social equity and justice,” he said. Babar also proposed declaring a national drought emergency, a shift from huge infrastructural development projects to water conservation and improved water management, sound population policies and an end to elite capture.

In reply to a question about the FIA enquiry against him, Farhatullah Babar said that the FIA had declared him an accused based on a citizen’s complaint, and it was not proper for him to respond to it publicly. “Let the private citizens’ allegations if there indeed was such a complaint, play out its normal course in a legal manner,” he said.