LARKANA: Senator Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, a member of Sindh in ECNEC, has demanded of the federal government to release the blocked funds for the RBOD project.
Khuhro said that the ECNEC meeting chaired by Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar was told that the RBOD project started in 2001 after the passage of 21 years, but the work could still not be completed because the federal government had blocked funds for the project, according to a statement issued by Khuhro’s spokesperson on Saturday.
Khuhro said that the federal government should release funds to the Sindh government now for this project so as to ensure the project’s completion in view of the current flood situation. He told the meeting that due to the non-completion of the work on the RBOD, Sindh was facing extreme difficulties in the rapid drainage of rainwater and due to lack of funds, Sindh alone could not complete this project, adding funds should be released for RBOD to complete this project immediately.
Khuhro further said that the federal government had kept funds in PSDP for the Mukhi Farsh Canal project to supply water to the power plants of Thar Coal, but the federal government had not yet provided any money for the said canal project to Sindh due to which this project which provided water to Thar Coal had also been delayed. He said: “If the Mukhi Farsh Canal project to supply water to Thar Coal is not completed, the electricity production will be reduced due to lack of water to Thar coal-fired power plants.”
Khuhro said that in the meeting, Sindh also raised the point of speeding up the lining of miners and distributaries in Sindh so that the agriculture sector could be provided support. He said that we also raised another very important issue which had ruined millions of Sindh coastal lands in Thatta and Badin due to sea erosion, adding this issue be resolved by establishing an embankment to stop or block sea water intrusion so that lands of Sindh could be saved.