Provincial Minister for Irrigation and Chairman PIDA, Mian Yawar Zaman has said that joint teams of Irrigation Department and Police will conduct patrolling on canals for checking water theft and Chief Minister has approved summary in this regard. He said that police officials working along with Irrigation Department for checking water theft will receive double salary.
He expressed these views while presiding over a meeting regarding water theft at his office today. Member Provincial Assembly Ch. Mehmood Cheema, Secretary Irrigation Captain (Retd.) Saif Anjum, Additional Secretary (Operation) Ch. Muhammad Ashraf, Chief Monitoring PMIU Habibullah Bodla, Assistant Inspector General of Police Waqar Abbasi and other concerned officials were present on the occasion. Speaking on the occasion, the Minister said that all the formers have equal right over canal water; however, a comprehensive strategy has been evolved for checking water theft. He said that Punjab Chief Minister has issued clear instructions regarding checking of water theft and committees headed by Assistant Commissioners comprising SDOs Irrigation and SHOs have been constituted and tehsil level. He said that joint teams of Police and Irrigation Department will conduct continuous patrolling on canals for capacity building of these committees so that small formers could get canal water of their share and effective legal action could be taken against the persons involved in water theft. He said that separate legal action will be taken against the persons involved in causing loss to the people and canal structure including protective spurs of water channels along with water theft and damaging public property.