JHANG City News

Farmers demonstrate against Irrigation Dept

From Our Correspondent

JHANG: A large number of farmers staged a demonstration against the Irrigation Department officials for allegedly deleting their names from the list of distribution of canal water of Mauza Ghanowan, Chak 177, on Thursday.

Talking to newsmen, farmer Muhammad Nawaz alleged that the Irrigation Department officials without any notice and justification handed over his weekly canal water turn to a farmer after receiving bribe from him. He said that his agricultural land was becoming barren because of unavailability of canal water.

Nawaz, Zafar, Riaz, Aslam and other farmers criticised the Irrigation Department officials and alleged that they were running their official affairs through mobile phones instead of ensuring presence in the area. They said that they would stage a sit-in in front of the Irrigation secretary office if their grievances were not resolved in a week. The farmers have demanded the Punjab chief minister, the chief secretary, the Irrigation Department secretary and the Faisalabad chief engineer take notice of the situation.

When contacted, Irrigation Department Jhang division Executive Engineer Sheikh Tahir said that he had already directed the SDO concerned to get back the file of distribution of canal water of Mauza Ghanowan from the deputy collector for holding an inquiry.