SWABI: Qaumi Watan Party chairman Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao has said that his party will strive to include the 90 per cent barren land of Kalu Khan and its suburbs in the Pehur High Level Canal (PHLC) irrigation extension plan.

The project was inaugurated few days ago by his son Sikandar Sherpao, who is also senior minister in the cabinet of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Addressing an Iftar-cum-dinner party at the residence of Salman Wali in Kalu Khan area the other day, the QWP chief said that the issue of irrigating the infertile land would be raised with both federal and provincial governments. “I hope we will make them agreed,” he said.

Mr Sherpao said that the issue of irrigating barren land of the area would be resolved by his party because they were the motivating force in the initiation of the project.

The project, after completion, would not only resolve the problem of wheat shortage in the district but it would be also helpful in making the provincial government self-sufficient in wheat.

With the completion of the Pehur extension project, the provincial government would no longer need to get wheat from other provinces or experience flour shortage like the past.Mr Sherpao said that the demand of the provision of natural gas to the region would also be fulfilled and his party would work on the project on priority basis.

“We are determined to make Swabi our second home after Charsadda. We never want to raise hollow slogans like the other leaders, who called the district their second home but ignored the local people when they were ruling the province,” Mr Sherpao said without naming the leaders of Awami National Party.

He said that it was astonishing that the same leaders were once again planning to deceive the people of the district. The leaders and workers of QWP would never give them a chance to stage a comeback, he added.

“We would never leave the people of the district in hot water. Our position in the district has been strengthened in the recent elections and it would be further built up with the passing of time,” the QWP chief said.

Mr Sherpao also distributed dates, wheat flour and ghee among the poor people under the auspices of Wali Mohammad Welfare Society.

Earlier, Salman Wali, who contested election from PK-33, Swabi-III, on QWP ticket, said that the congested area of Kalu Khan and its suburbs had been ignored by the previous governments and he hoped that QWP leadership would end their deprivation.

Mr Wali is brother-in-law of Shahram Khan Tarakai, the chairman of Awami Jamhoori Ittehad (AJIP) Pakistan and provincial minister for agriculture. He said that he had quit AJIP before May 11 elections and joined QWP as a protest.