Bengali slams 'irresponsible' statement on water flows.

KARACHI -- Renowned political economist Dr Kaiser Bengali on Saturday contested the Punjab Irsa member's claim that water flows into the sea were causing an annual loss of $29 billion and dismissed the claim that 'coming generations would die of hunger' as irresponsible sensational.

In a statement, Dr Bengali, who is the author of a book titled Political Economy of Water, accused the 'water lobby' of trying to play God and restructure nature. Nature, he said, had created a balanced system where rivers flow into the sea and keep the latter from intruding inland.

'However, restriction of river Indus water flow over the last 100 years on account of construction of barrages and dams has caused 56 kilometres of land to be consumed by the sea,' he said. 'A whole union council of arable land is now under the sea and tens of thousands of families have lost their livelihoods and are now environmental refugees. This is the economic and...