ISLAMABAD, Dec 19: Sindh’s parliamentarians belonging to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League and Functional League, including two federal ministers, on Monday expressed reservations about dams plan and openly opposed construction of Kalabagh dam in their meeting with the president and the prime minister.

A participant of the meeting told Dawn that even federal Minister for Water and Power Liaquat Ali Jatoi informed the president and the prime minister that Sindh’s parliamentarians could not extend unconditional support to the Kalabagh dam.

“We don’t want the people of Sindh to desecrate graves of our forefathers,” Mr Jatoi was quoted as saying at the meeting. Minister for Local Government Razaq Thaheem also opposed the Kalabagh plan.

President Pervez Musharraf expressed his displeasure over the remarks and assured the parliamentarians belonging to Sindh that their reservations relating to construction of new reservoirs, equitable distribution of water and implementation of the 1991 water accord will be removed, the sources said.

The president made the observations while talking to Sindh’s parliamentarians at a dinner meeting Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had arranged at the PM House as part of government’s move towards construction of new reservoirs.

Informed sources said Water and Power Minister Liaquat Ali Jatoi was specially flown in from his hometown for the meeting. Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, president of ruling Pakistan Muslim League Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Senator Mushahid Hussain and Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed also attended the meeting.

Senator Nisar Memon, chairman of parliamentary committee on water resources, expressed his dissatisfaction over the way reports of the two committees were being portrayed by the government quarters as supporting the Kalabagh dam.

He said he did not write anything in his report which could give an impression of support or opposition to the Kalabagh dam.

Senator Javed Ali Shah of Functional League told the meeting that his party could not support the Kalabagh dam because they have to live forever in the province.

The sources quoted the president as telling Sindh’s parliamentarians that it was not the question of Kalabagh dam or Bhasha dam. The government would have to build both the dams and this should be immediately followed by a third dam.

The president told the participants that Kalabagh and Bhasha dams would together be able to regain the storage capacity that had been lost due to excessive silting in the existing reservoirs and a third dam would really provide additional water storage capacity.

He said the development of future dams was a national issue and he expected that parliamentarians would think beyond their constituencies, otherwise future generations would not forgive them.

The president said he was ready to talk to the public at large and listen to all viewpoints on media and respond to objections raised by any section of society. In this regard, the president said he would soon visit Sindh, the NWFP and Balochistan to take the people into confidence about the measures the government would take to ensure equitable distribution of water resources for all times to come, the sources said.

The Sindhi parliamentarians, said the sources, unanimously said that if at all the government had made up its mind then Kalabagh dam should only be a carryover dam without any canals, otherwise they could not support its construction.

They also unanimously demanded that the 1991 water accord should be implemented in letter and in spirit as violation of this vital inter-provincial agreement had often resulted in lack of trust among stakeholders.

Mr Jatoi informed the meeting that he had been striving hard to ensure foolproof running of the telemetry system that could have been a very good confidence-building measure ahead of the announcement of any major irrigation project, but all his attempts remained futile.

He said the national institutions like Wapda used to be representative bodies of all the four provinces but incidentally all key posts in the federal water and power ministry and Wapda and its members belonged to Punjab and this was creating a sense of deprivation among small provinces.

The sources said the meeting also witnessed exchange of hot words between Senator Yasmin Shah and the Sindh chief minister. The senator said the meeting should be told what arrangements the chief minister of Sindh had made on the eve of a strike call announced by some parties in the province. Dr Arbab Rahim responded by saying that Senator Yasmin and her husband, a provincial minister, should lead these protests and he (Dr Arbab) would join them.