Sindhis welcome Benazir's stand on Kalabagh Dam

It was first time that PPP's chairperson Benazir Bhutto openly stood firm against Kala Bagh Dam, eventually she has accepted concerns of the people of Sindh over the issue of Kala Bagh Dam.

Talking to first Sindhi TV channel KTNÂ’s CEO and editor of Daily Kawish Mr. Ali Kazi, last night, she said that PPP opposes KBD and did not support the construction of dam since it is going to reduce water share of Sindh province.

Ms Bhutto also clarified another issue regarding PPP government budget allocation for a dam during its government. She said that actually Mr. Farooq Laghari came up with a proposal of another dam called 'Indus dam', but government went into details it found it just change of a name, and its essence it remained same KBD.

She also dismissed Musharraf's assumption that construction of Dam will make more water available to provinces. A However, Ms Bhutto seemed to be in agreement with construction of carry over dam on Indus, which is again critical question in some circles of Sindh.

Chairman, Sindh Chamber of Agriculture, Mr. Qamar Zaman Shah is on record saying that " Sindh will not support any dam which is constructed after a guarantee to Sindh that it will not be used for irrigation purposes, he said, Sindh would accept only natural guarantee, not paper guarantee.

Well, it seems now quite clear that PPP has departed from its earlier vague stand on construction of dam, as we know that the party used to support dam in Punjab while oppose in Sindh, and always sought a consensus, though when three out of four provinces of the country have rejected KBD, there is no logic to still wait and seek refuge in so called consensus.

One feels delighted and burden bit lightened with MBB open and clear stand now on issue of life and death for people of Sindh.

We welcome this position.

Mushtaque Rajpar
Karachi.

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From: Mushtaque Rajpar
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Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 23:55:55 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [sindh-politics] We welcome Benazir's stand on Kala Bagh Dam