HYDERABAD, Oct 3: The Sindh National Council has announced a series of demonstrations and hunger strikes from October 15 across Sindh in protest against proposed construction of Kalabagh dam.

Speaking at a news conference at the press club on Monday, SNC leaders Hussain Bux Thebo, Dr Dodo Mehiri, Punhal Sario and Ghulam Qadir Burdi said a conference of all parties would be held in Hyderabad on October 23 to discuss the repercussions of dam on Sindh.

They alleged that World Bank had bulldozed opinion of three provinces in order to protect interest of Punjab.

The bank had offered to pay $15 billion for the construction of big dams on the Indus River.

They said the construction of big dams had been stopped throughout the world including the United States to protect the human race.

The SNC leaders said the World Bank had always worked against the interests of Sindh and did great injustice with the province in 1960 when an agreement of water took place between Pakistan and India.

They said the Indus Delta was destroyed after the construction of Tarbela and Mangla dams.

The World Bank had accepted in its own report in 1985 that the geological survey conducted before the construction of Tarbela dam was incomplete and wrong.

They said the Kalabagh dam would be constructed on the salt range and therefore its foundation would always be weak.

They feared that tens of thousands of people would be killed if the dam breaks due to earthquake. The leaders said that the foreign experts who had conducted the survey of the dam had pointed a fault near its site.

They said the water conservation in the country would be equal to eight Kalabagh dams if the canals, channels and watercourses were lined.

This way thousands of acres of land would be saved from salinity and water logging, they claimed.

MUET: The vice-chancellor of the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro, Prof (Dr) Abdul Qadeer Khan Rajput, has urged scholars to work collectively with the university to improve the standard of education.

He was presiding over the 24th meeting of the university senate.

The meeting discussed the budgets of the university, which was Rs385.794 million for the year 2003-04 and Rs378.912 million for the year 2004-05.

Highlighting the achievements of the university, the vice chancellor said that the MUET had shown rapid progress over the past few years. The senate appreciated the efforts of the Higher Education Commission, which had brought changes in the complexion of research and development at the campus.