Daily Times

DADU: Abadgars (small growers) of the tail-end areas of Rice Canal on Friday held a demonstration in front of the office of the Rice Canal executive engineer in Mehar town against an alleged theft of water by influential landowners in the region.

Reportedly, their leaders including Mohib Thebo, Wali Mohammed Bhatti and others chanted slogans for fair water distribution and alleged that the unscrupulous landowners were stealing their share of water in connivance with the local irrigation employees at Rs 500,000 per water course from the head of the canal.

This was ultimately curtailing the flow of water to other areas while the tail-end areas did not receive any.

They claimed that an estimated 200 or so watercourses and modules were tampered with along the canal affecting over 3,000 small growers of Mehar and Khairpur Nathan Shah talukas.

The Rice Canal was built solely to facilitate the rice growers of upper Sindh.

They, being in a hunger strike, appealed to the Chairman of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to take notice into water theft from the canal and take action accordingly.

Published in Daily Times, August 4^th 2018.