President, Multan Chamber of Commerce & Industry (MCCI), Fareed Mughis Sheikh, has urged the government to allocate adequate funds in the federal budget for construction of big reservoirs. He said that the policy makers would have to understand that economic growth lied in construction of water reservoirs, which were a cheap source of generating electricity.
He said that there was a dire need of water reservoirs to irrigate the barren lands in Cholistan, Thal and Dera Ghazi Khan. "The government should create consensus for early construction of water reservoirs," he stressed. Sheikh said that rising population could lead to severe food shortage in near future. "Kalabagh Dam should be built at any cost, as it will bring huge part of land under cultivation," he added. He said it was a matter of concern that almost nine million hectors of fertile land was not being cultivated due to non-availability of water. Sheikh said that Pakistan's economy was based on agriculture, which could not survive without sufficient water resources. "We are already suffering and further delay in the construction of Kalabagh Dam would hit us hard," he observed.