Rashid Maqsood’s above titled letter, 7 July, has some very good suggestions. Dams are already being operated by the federal body IRSA, however, the suggestion of declaring them to be federal areas is quite sound.
The criteria suggested for ECC’s intervention is also very sound because at present IRSA with a higher representation from Sindh is discriminating against Punjab. Sindh and Balochistan between them have three votes against one for Punjab.
Punjab has already agreed under the Water Apportionment Accord of 1991 to a reduced share in favour of Sindh in all future dams; equal share for both despite Punjab having 70 percent of the total crop area of the country and bearing 80 percent of the total agriculture burden. It has also agreed to monitoring by engineers from the Sindh irrigation department.
KHURSHID ANWER
Lahore
