The employees posted at 26 water-filtration plants in different areas of the province held protest, on Friday, due to the non-payment of their monthly salaries. It was reported that the staff did not get their monthly salaries for the last ten years due to which they were facing financial crisis. The plants were installed during the Musharraf era in the areas of Ratodero, Bosan, Banguldero, Larkana and other areas where these employees were posted to look after the equipment and kept them functional. This was stated by Abdul Fatah Laghari, Gulsher Junejo, Wazir Ali Bhutto and others after they held protest at Jinnah Bagh for the payment of their outstanding dues. The protestors claimed that earlier, the government announced to handover these plants to Public Health Engineering Department (PHED), Sindh for proper look-after but this decision was yet to be implemented. They said that only two employees, Bashir Ahmed and an engineer, both from Bosan Village Plant, were getting salaries directly from Islamabad regularly and other employees were facing devastating poverty. The protesters alleged that due to the mismanagement, most of the plants either became dysfunctional and were occupied by the habitual land-grabbers or they were used by the drugs users due to which the citizens were forced to drink highly contaminated water which resulted in deadly water-borne diseases like Hepatitis in the relevant areas, including Ratodero. They further disclosed that one of their colleagues, named Bashir Shaikh, expired earlier. He was posted at the plant which was installed at the Old Bus Stand area in Larkana but his heirs were not paid his pending dues. They urged the relevant government department to clear their dues before Eid and also handover the plants to PHED for the betterment of the citizens. Published in Daily Times, August 18th 2018.