Sindh Minister for Irrigation Jam Khan Shoro during the Sindh Assembly session on Friday said it is not possible to establish new water reservoirs due to water shortage.
There was always a shortage of water at the Kotri Barrage in Sindh, he said, adding that water for the K-IV scheme would also have to be brought from somewhere else.
According to the 1991 Water Agreement, the provinces were not getting their due share of water and even the sea was not getting the water it required, he remarked.
The Sindh Assembly also passed the Sindh Registration Amendment Bill 2026 and the Sindh Development and Maintenance of Infrastructure Cess Amendment Bill on Friday.
Both the bills were presented by Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Ziaul Hassan Lanjar.
The proceedings in the House began under the chairmanship of Rehana Leghari from the panel of chairmen. Lanjar presented the Sindh Registration Amendment Bill clause-wise, which was approved by the House.
He also presented the Sindh Development and Maintenance of Infrastructure Cess Amendment Bill and explained that the reason why the Sindh government was bringing amendments to the infrastructure cess was that Sindh was not getting any benefit from the cess.
He said more than 500 related cases were pending in the courts and the government had taken all the traders on board on this issue.
The law minister said the traders had been asked to withdraw their cases. He added that Sindh’s infrastructure cess was less than Punjab.
According to the amendment bill, now less than one per cent of the cess fund would be collected from the traders.
Excise Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla congratulated the House on the approval of the bill and said that it was a longstanding demand of the business community to reduce the infrastructure cess fund.
Due to the cess, factories were shifting to Punjab, he said, adding that no cess fund would be collected on future exports.
The parliamentary affairs minister then presented a report on the Provincial Motor Vehicle Amendment Bill, after which the Sindh Assembly passed the Provincial Motor Vehicle Tax Amendment Bill 2026.
Earlier, the House rejected an adjournment motion by Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) MPA Amir Siddiqui about restoring traffic on University Road.
Lanjar opposed the motion and said developmental work was going on University Road. He asked whether the government should stop the construction.
The house chairperson said the motion did not constitute an adjournment and rejected it.
MQM-P member Abdul Waseem also raised the issue of huge delays in ongoing development works on important highways under construction in Karachi and the resulting difficulties faced by the public.
Various attention notices were also raised by MPAs about matters of public importance. The MQM-P’s Naseer Ahmed said in his attention notice that during the period of inflation, the salaries of employees in different towns of Karachi had not increased and despite the government’s announcement, the employees of the towns were getting old salaries.
To this, Local Government Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah said it was a fact that whenever the budget increased, salaries increased, and this happened every year. He added that salaries in the Centre or other provinces had not been increased as much as they had been increased in Sindh.
He acknowledged that the government had received complaints from some towns and the issue would be resolved soon.
Minority member Mahesh Hasija said in his notice that 16,000 posts of constables had come up in the Sindh police, and out of 200,000 candidates, 2,000 were minority candidates, but they were rejected on the minority quota.
He appealed to the home minister to resolve the issue. Lanjar said the notice should not be politicized, and Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had also instructed that there should be no injustice with minorities.
MQM-P member Musarat Jabin raised the issue of water shortage in Jamshed Town and Chanesar Town in her notice. She said it had been six days since water had reached her area.
Nasir informed the House that unannounced shutdowns were carried out by K-Electric, and Jinnah Town and Chanesar Town got water five days a week, but there were still some issues that would be resolved.
During the question hour on Friday regarding the irrigation department, Irrigation Minister Jam Khan Shoro answered various written and supplementary questions of the members. He told the House that there was not enough water available in Pakistan to build new water reservoirs, although dams had many benefits. He said that according to the 1991 agreement, the provinces were not getting the full amount of water.
He said that sewage was discharged into the sea in different areas of Sindh and the public health engineering department was working to ensure that treated water was discharged.
He said one million cusecs of water should go downstream from Kotri. Later, the Sindh Assembly session was adjourned till 2:30pm on Monday.
