Mangla Dam: Affected people threaten to take to the streets

Announce indefinite sit-in in Mirpur.

MIRPUR:

Expressing concern over the delay in resettlement of the people affected by the upraising of Mangla Dam, an alliance of three major action committees threatened, on Tuesday, to take to the streets and stage an indefinite sit-in in Mirpur from January 20.

Spokesperson for the alliance, Sardar Attique Sadhozai told The Express Tribune that the affected people led by leaders of the action committees will participate in the mass protest against the government for violating the commitment to relocate them to the New Mirpur city before they are uprooted from their homes.

He said they hope to pressurise the government to take notice of their demands by staging the protest.

Sadhozai stated that over 1,2500,000 people affected by the under-construction Mangla Dam raising project cannot be left at the mercy of Wapda and the Mangla Dam Resettlement Organisation. The people belong to Mirpur and other places located along the periphery of the Mangla Lake, who sold their lands for the upraising of Mangla Dam.

He said Wapda could not be allowed to submerge the affected people by raising the water level by 40 feet in the reservoir unless the thousands of families who would be displaced were all resettled.

The affected people demanded an increase in funds reserved for compensation and  housing for extended families. They also demanded rehabilitation of an additional 78 displaced families and provision of basic amenities in New Mirpur city.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 18^th, 2012.