October 9, 2003	Thursday	Sha’aban 12, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 8: Parliamentarians at a seminar on Wednesday remained divided over the question of Kalabagh dam construction but some proposed to amend the Constitution to distribute royalties among the provinces and the people who would be displaced as a result of the construction of any dam in the future.

The seminar “Issues of Water Resources in Pakistan” was organized by Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT), a US-funded non-governmental organization. More than 40 predominantly women parliamentarians from all the four provinces attended.

The seminar depicted a general impression of mistrust among the federating units and political point scoring on the question of Kalabagh dam and at times turned into a circus where everybody was speaking and nobody was listening.

Former NWFP minister and Wapda chairman Shamsul Mulk warned that Bhasha dam should not be taken in hand in a hurry as being proposed by Wapda. He said the project would take at least 7-8 years for investigation before construction. He also said that the height of Bhasha dam, as was being currently proposed, was dangerous and must be reduced.

He said that Kalabagh and Bhasha dams should not be considered as equals or alternatives to each other because Kalabagh dam had been supported by the world’s more than 10 renowned experts on the basis of over 35 years of investigation while Bhasha dam still required tremendous engineering input.

Wapda Chairman Zulfiqar Ali Khan gave a presentation to the parliamentarians on water-sector projects. He said the height of Kalabagh dam would be 915 feet while the ground level of Charsada, Pabbi, Nowshera, Mardan and Swabi was 40 to 85 feet higher than the dam level.

He said around 66,000 people in Punjab would be displaced and 24,500 acres of agricultural land would get submerged due to the dam’s construction while 42,000 people in the NWFP would be displaced.

He proposed that royalty of the dam should go to a federal pool for sharing among the provinces instead of going to Punjab as being objected to by the people of Sindh.

Awami National Party’s vice-president Haji Mohammad Adeel, who represented his party chief Asfandyar Wali, said a powerful mafia comprising Wapda, Punjabi feudals, politicians, army generals, bureaucrats and journalists kept the Kalabagh dam issue alive despite unanimous resolutions passed by three provincial assemblies against the project, because they had huge land holdings in Choolistan and they did not want the country to develop any other project for the last 25 years.

He said there were more than 16 sites including Bhasha, Skardu, Bungi, Dasu and others which could be taken up for dam construction. He said Kalabagh dam was harmful for the federation and the country because this would cause short- and long-term damages to Sindh and the NWFP.

Awami Tehreek’s Abrar Hussain Qazi quoted historical perspective of the water problems in Pakistan, and alleged that Punjab’s leaders like Mumtaz Daultana and Sardar Shaukat Hayat had hatched a conspiracy against Sindh in collaboration with East Punjab to deprive Sindh of its water share.

He quoted Wapda chairman Zulfiqar as telling Rasul Bukhsh Paleejo last year that the president wanted to know which project could be started and completed during his tenure, and ordered the construction of Kalabagh dam when told that Greater Thal project could be completed by 2006.

He insisted that Sindh had been subjected to injustices. When its people had no drinking water, Punjab province reaped bumper crops. He said Sindh could not trust the establishment and Wapda promises that there would be no canals from the dam.

He proposed that a policy of water conservation should be adopted instead of storage, and strongly opposed the construction of Kalabagh dam and Greater Thal Canal.

Pakistan People’s Party MNA Qurban Ali Shah said that when cheap electricity could be produced from nuclear energy then why the government was insisting on Kalabagh’s construction. He said the Greater Thal canal was started without formal approval from relevant forums. This was denied by Wapda chairman and explained various steps of GTC approval process.

Former water and power minister Gohar Ayub Khan said that opposition to the KBD was purely on political basis. He proposed that article 161 of the Constitution should be amended to distribute the share of royalty on Kalabagh dam among the provinces.

PPP MNA Major Zulfiqar Gondal said that constitutional protections could not be relied upon in a country where the Constitution itself remained unprotected all along. He proposed that the issue should be brought before the Council of Common Interest.

MNA Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli said the Constitution could not be amended to put the royalty in a federal pool for provincial sharing because it required a majority vote in parliament.