Stressing the need to build major reservoirs, the president accused the previous governments of betraying the people of Sindh on major issues confronting the province.

He warned the people not to be misled by people opposing the construction of major dams, saying they were enemies of the Sindh province.

Gen Musharraf said that being a friend of Sindh he would never betray the interests of the province.

Terming construction of major water reservoirs vital to the future needs of the country as well as Sindh, he said previous governments had paid only lip service and failed to foresee the country's irrigation needs.

He said that the government was now building new dams in Punjab, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and the NWFP, which would ultimately benefit Sindh.

The ceremony was attended by a large number of growers, agriculturists, Nazims, people from Ghotki, Jacobabad, Larkana, Shikarpur and Sukkur districts.

Listing mega projects, like the RBOD, Sehwan Barrage, Thar coal project and Reni Canal, under Wapda's Vision-2025, he said the government was endeavouring to improve Sindh's water supply system for the benefit of its agricultural sector.

Highlighting the government's endeavours regarding the revival of national economy, poverty alleviation and other development projects, President Musharraf said he would inaugurate the Chotiari dam soon. He said this project would help meet irrigation needs of Dadu district.

FCA MAY SET 20.27M TON WHEAT TARGET

Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) in its meeting on October 7 is expected to set 20.27 million ton target for the 2003 wheat crop.

The production target for the next crop envisages about 10.26 per cent increase.

According to official figures, the domestic requirements of wheat for the year 2002-03 will be a little over 20.74 million tons. Thanks to record harvests of 1999-2000 and 2000-01, 3.697 million tons will be carried forward. Together with the harvest of 2001-02, the total availability at the start of 2002- 03 has been estimated as 22.089 million tons.

FOUR HYDROPOWER PROJECTS OKAYED

The government has given clearance to four major hydropower projects worth Rs35.2 billion to be completed by June 2006. Official sources told on Tuesday that all the four projects were awaiting clearance by the Planning Commission which has been given after the removal of some objections by the sponsoring agency of the projects — the Water and Power Development Authority.

The Jinnah Hydro Electric Power Project would cost Rs13.5 billion with the Foreign Exchange Component (FEC) of Rs6.6 billion.

The project envisages construction of 96MW hydroelectric power plant at Jinnah barrage at the Indus River in Punjab.

A total of 688GWH energy would be produced annually from the power plant and would be connected to the main grid system at Daudkhel by 132kv transmission lines, proposed to be constructed under the project.

SEL TO ACQUIRE CHINESE TECHNOLOGY

Chinese trucks are set to replace the popular Japanese brand Mazda T-3500 trucks on the roads in Karachi and other parts of the country from next year as the Mazda Motor Corporation of Japan has expressed its inability to supply the T-3500 chassis beyond March 2003 due to some corporate compulsion.

Sind Engineering Limited (SEL) is acquiring franchise and technical assistance from Dong Feng Motor Corporation (DFML) of China for the assembly of 1.5 tons, 3.9 tons and 15 tons payload commercial vehicles fitted with world famous Cummins engine thus replacing Mazda T-3500 trucks, a senior official in SEL said.

SINDH UPLIFT KEY TO INDUSTRIAL GROWTH

Emphasis has been laid on developing infrastructure and improving law and order situation in Sindh so that urban-rural divide could be narrowed by setting up cluster of industries in lesser developed areas of the province.

The occasion was a third session of second day of a seminar on 'Economic Development in Sindh' organized by Dawn group of newspapers on Wednesday at a local hotel.

BME TO SUPPLY IRON ORE TO PS

The Bolan Mining Enterprises (BME) will supply 100,000 tons of iron ore annually to Pakistan Steel (PS). An inter-ministerial meeting presided over jointly by the ministers for commerce and production and the petroleum and natural resources was held on Wednesday to finalize the terms and conditions for the sale of indigenous iron ore from Dilband area, district Mastung, Balochistan by BME to PS.

MODERNIZATION

The Federal Government has decided to ask managements of ginning factories to modernize their machinery by September 2004 to ensure production of lint cotton at par with international standards.

RAISING OF MANGLA DAM COMMENCES

President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Monday inaugurated the Rs57 billion Mangla Dam raising project and said that Azad Kashmir will now get royalty for its hydropower plant like other provinces.

Initially, the federal government has decided to offer Rs700 to Rs800 million to the Azad Kashmir government, but later, the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) will work out a formula for extending royalty to AJK," he said.

IRSA WATER DISTRIBUTION

The Indus River System Authority (Irsa) prepared on Saturday a water distribution plan for provinces, predicting a shortage of 35 per cent of flows in country's rivers during the coming wheat-sowing rabi season, starting from Monday.