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PESHAWAR, April 26: Speakers at a day-long seminar on the under-execution ‘Gomal Zam dam and its impact’ expressed reservations about the multi-purpose water storage project.

They asked for appropriate measures on the part of the government to save large number of people from getting deprived of their right on the use of Rod Kohi system water.

Representatives of the civil society, members of the community set to get affected by the execution of the project and experts made presentations covering different aspects of the dam, including its environmental and social impact, its economic viability, funding and its overall effectiveness.

Members of the local community from the Gomal area — where 437ft high dam would be constructed — explained in detail the ‘negative’ impact the GZDP was expected to have on their area, at present under crops.

According to them, diversion of the Gomal river water, downstream the under-execution Gomal dam, would deprive a large number of people of water currently available to them under the Rod Kohi system.

The seminar, jointly organized by the SUNGI Development Foundation and the Peshawar Press Club, was aimed at highlighting the pros and cons of the GZDP and making recommendations to bring about rectifications.

Mushtaq Gadi, of Sungi Development Foundation, said the project was not cost effective for the high incidence of silt in the Gomal river flows.

He said the Wapda — the executing agency — had banked on the silt data pertaining to early 1970s whereas during all these years concentration of silt had risen further due to large-scale deforestation in Afghanistan, forming the catchment area of Gomal river.

According to him, in clear violation of the international lending agencies’ laid-down procedures and rules and the Environmental Protection Act of 1997, the government did not consider it appropriate to carry out Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to gauge the negative impact the GZDP was going to have on the area’s ecology.

Similarly, he also urged for conducting social impact assessment to help the poor people continue their perennial right on use of the Rod Kohi irrigation system.