LAHORE, Oct 1: Irrigation experts, engineers, intellectuals and politicians who attended a meeting of the Hamdard Thinkers Forum on Wednesday demanded that a national water policy should be prepared and steps taken for building a dam.

The forum meeting held at the Hamdard Centre with its chairman, Senator S.M. Zafar in the chair, passed a resolution which said if technical experts felt that the Kalabagh dam should be given priority, the matter should be referred to a special committee of parliament which should hold its meetings in camera and take a final decision.

It said the proposed water policy should be drafted in consultation with the technical, water and economic experts, engineers and farmers’ representatives and other relevant persons.

The resolution said the water apportionment accord reached with consensus in 1991 guaranteed the equitable distribution of water to the provinces, and it should be made a basis for the water distribution. The meeting also emphasized the need for reaching a consensus on future water storages by holding a dialogue with the people of the four provinces following an open debate with the irrigation and economic experts and engineers on the subject.

It said the construction cost of the proposed dam should be met from the foreign exchange reserves which had gone up to $12 billion. It would satisfy the critics who were saying that the forex reserves were not being spent for some useful purpose. It also urged the media to educate the people on the need for water storages by giving a true picture of the situation with the help of facts and figures. The resolution warned that any further delay in building new water storages would amount to a national crime.

The participants in the discussion on the need for new water storages with particular reference to the Kalabagh dam project included Senator S.M. Zafar, former Punjab University vice-chancellor Dr. Rafiq Ahmad, ex-minister Sultan Ahmad Chaudhry, irrigation and economic expert Sultan Burq, Brig Zafar Iqbal (retired), Indus Basin water commissioner Jamaat Ali Shah, Wapda chief engineer Raghib Abbas Shah, author of a book on Kalabagh dam Dr M.A. Soofi, educationist Khalida Jameel, Begum Hamid Khwaja of the Hamid Khwaja Trust, JUP (Nifaz-i-Shariat) engineer Saleemullah Khan, Prof Abdul Jabbar Shakir, writer Nawaz Malik, Farmers Associates Pakistan secretary-general Mohammed Idrees and former PFUJ president I.H. Raashed. The meeting also passed a resolution expressing its condolence over the death of Nawabzada Nasrullah. Paying a tribute to the leader, the resolution said he had always upheld the moral values and decency in politics. As Kashmir Committee president, he had served the cause of the freedom struggle of the people of Kashmir.