The Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) lawmakers Monday blasted the PML-N-led federal government for adding Rs 8 billion to the Rs 4 billion cost of a water related programme since 2005.
The federal government had started a “Clean Water for All” programme in 2005 under which 6,035 ROWFPs had to be installed across Pakistan and a sum of Rs 4 billion were earmarked which was thrice revised and the cost of the project reached Rs 16 billion,” said the legislators.
The statement was made by PPP’s members of national assembly (MNA) Nawab Yousuf Talpur, Mir Munawwar Talpur, Ejaz Jakhrani and Mir Shabbir Ali Bijarani who expressed satisfaction on Sindh government’s efforts in Tharparkar.
All the RO plants under federal government’s aegis were lying dead, the MNAs added.
Further, they said “certain sections” of media were deliberately focusing on Tharparker to unnecessarily magnify the issue. “A deliberate move was being launched against the elected government,” they claimed.
The PPP was being a pro-masses political party that had its deep roots among the masses across the country had for many times in past faced such trials and would soon foil the conspiracies being hatched against the party, they said.
The PPP MNAs said a few people from the national media were making all they could to magnify the Tharparkar scenario with unnecessary additions to the stories they had so far carried while ignoring the anomalies of the masses in other provinces where crime rate was higher than Sindh and the healthcare system was performing in high spirits.
Even the crucial operation against terrorists, Zarb-e Azb, was not being given top priority because they wanted to keep the rating meter high.
The torture on the internally displaced persons (IDP) and their arrest only for demanding food to eat was a highly condemnable act of the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and it was the demand of the national spirit that the media coverage of the patron party of the government of KPK, the Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf, should be completely boycotted, they deplored.
They said the Sindh government had so far spent billions on the welfare, relief and rehabilitation of the inhabitants of Tharparkar and had dispensed 50, 000 wheat bags among the inhabitants of Tharparkar during past eight months and each of the basic health units was working properly in all union councils of the district.
The PPP MNAs said the child mortality rate in the country was 65 deaths from 1,000 children while in district, the rate was just 45 to 50 deaths.
Some 325 reverse osmosis water filtration plants (ROWFP) would be functional in the district by December 27 this current year while further 400 ROWFPs would be installed by May 2015 with which the issue of access to potable water would be resolved.
They said the rate of death per 1000 children in Tharparkar was comparatively less than the rate of death at the national level as death in Tharparkar were just 45 to 50 while the rate at national level was 65 per 1000 children.
The PPP had installed 70 ROWFPs in recent past, which were being shifted to solar energy and five such ROWFPs had already been converted on solar energy.
Around 100-acre could be made fertile for agri-produce with the use of soil water through pumps being installed in Tharparkar.