KHIPRO: Pakistan People’s Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Saturday inaugurated the Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Fresh Water Project to provide clean drinking water from Nara Canal to 85 villages in Sanghar. Under the project completed by Sindh government, a 240-kilometer long pipeline has been laid to ensure water supply to these villages. Addressing a gathering after the inauguration, the PPP chairman said, “I have just inaugurated a 240-kilometer long pipeline to provide drinking water to Achro Thar villages hit by severe drought for a long time.” He said the moment he saw joy on the face of villagers on getting piped water at their doorsteps was the happiest moment of his life. “In the last five years, parties like the PMLN and PTI have remained occupied with mudslinging only, all for the sake of staying in power. They have never felt the pain of the people let alone tried to solve longstanding problems in the provinces they are in power in.” Bilawal said that PPP had been serving the masses all this while, adding that the party’s leaders had spent all their energies in trying solve the basic issues of the people. “We have worked on education, health, employment and clean water. We have built new universities and colleges, and extended stipends to school-going girls,” he said. The PPP chairman pointed out that Sindh has excelled in provision of health facilities, and mentioned some of the key projects completed by the government: construction of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Trauma Center in Karachi, biggest Emergency Response Center for children, and Pakistan’s first Cyber Knife technology machine to conduct free of cost cancer radio surgery, which normally costs Rs6 million. “After NICVD Karachi, hospitals of international standards have been established in Larkana, Tando Mohammad Khan, Sehwan and Sukkur to provide free of cost cardiovascular treatment to patients. A state of the art liver transplant center has been built in Gambat tehsil of Khairpur where liver transplantation is carried out free of cost and the facility is available to every Pakistani citizen,” he added. Bilawal said that these were costly medical procedures, and were out of reach of the poor but the PPP government had made these available without any charge. He stated that poverty in the country was due to the anti-poor policies of the PML-N government. The PPP government, he said, had extended interest-free loans to poor women so that they could start their own small businesses and so far 600,000 families had benefitted from this union council-based programme. Bilawal said that entire country had been suffering from water scarcity since 10 years and Sindh was the worst affected for both drinking and agriculture water. “And during all these years, we have been working on clean water not because a suo motu case had been taken in that regard,” he stated, adding that Sindh was deprived of its water share. The IRSA and the federal government were not providing its share in water to the province, he said, adding, “Sindh has reservations over 1991 Water Accord signed during PML-N but its alarming that even that questionable accord is not being implemented fully.” The PPP chairman said the federal government could spend water on horticulture in Lahore, but was unable to ensure enough water for Sindh so that all its drought hit areas could be supplied with the essential ingredient for life. He said that the Sindh government had carried out lining of water courses and canals to save available water and in Sanghar alone, lining of 23 distributaries was carried out in last five years, and this enabled the government to irrigate 1000s of acres of barren land, while 1700 RO Plants were installed in entire Sindh. “I don’t say that everything is 100 percent right in Sindh, but our hardwork and intentions cannot be put to doubt. We know the problems of people and do people’s politics. Only PPP has served Sindh and given mega projects to the province.” Bilawal said that whether it was PML-N or PML-F, they are anti-people parties. “People always resist them in the shape of PPP. Sanghar is crying that it has been devastated by PML-F, which is still an ally of PMLN in federal government.” “PML-F has always considered Sanghar as its jagir and people as its slaves. They did nothing for Sanghar, Khipro, Tando Adam, and Shahdadpur and kept people in darkness.” Bilawal said that PPP had launched water supply Scheme in Sanghar. “PPP constructed Sanghar-Mirpurkhas Road, Sanghar-Nawabshah Road, Khyber-Sanghar Road, Tando Adam-Kandiari Road, and Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto University in Sanghar.” He said , “we are Sufis and revere all the shrines but we have to segregate politics from piri-mureedi. Everybody can make big claims but Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto gave sacrifices for the people. Like them, I will also not leave you alone,” he assured the people of the city. CM Murad Ali Shah, provincial ministers including Nisar Khuhro, and PPP MNA from Sanghar Shazia Marri were present on the occasion. Published in Daily Times, April 1st 2018.