MULTAN, Nov 28: Independent Power Producers operating in the country are behind the anti-Kalabagh Dam move because they do not want to see Pakistan meeting its energy requirements through its indigenous resources.

Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Sher Afgan Khan Niazi alleged this while addressing a seminar 'Why the Kalabagh Dam and other reservoirs are needed', organized by Tehreek-i-Istiqlal here on Sunday.

He further alleged that the real opposition to the construction of the dam was being put up by NGOs funded by the IPPs. "The country can reach to a political consensus on the disputed issue of Kalabagh but the NGOs will not give up their opposition owing to the agenda of the IPPs," he claimed.

The minister said he had been a campaigner for the dam since 1972 because he had a firm belief that the project was a lifeline for future Pakistan. He said that the regional leaders of the smaller provinces had been opposing the project without knowing its details and benefits. "Most of them do not even know that where exactly the dam will be built," he claimed.

He said Punjab and its people had always showed responsibility for the 'greater national interest'. The minister said an estimated 85,000 people would be displaced owing to construction of the dam and they all would belong to Punjab.

He said some leaders of Sindh province were opposed to the project mainly due to misnomers that Punjab would dig right and left bank canals from the dam and that the areas of Badin and Thatta would be intruded by the Arabian Sea owing to discharge of water less than 10m MAF from Kotri Barrage.

He said the proposed site of the dam was surrounded by rigid mountainous ranges and, therefore, digging canals there would be impossible while about 35.2m MAF water was wasted every year into the sea.

"On the other hand the Kalabagh Dam will have the storage capacity of only 6.2m MAF," he added, saying the fear about less discharge of water than the needed to maintain the ecological system beyond Kotri was baseless.

He maintained that Sindh would be the major beneficiary of the dam as compared to the other provinces. He said that India had some 6000 dams while Chine had 22000 as against only a few in Pakistan. The minister said that the project had been declared viable by all the international donors including IMF, IBRD (World Bank) and ADB.

He said the country would need three more dams by the year 2020 and then four more in the next 20 years to meet its water requirements in case the Kalabagh Dam was not constructed due to 'baseless' political opposition. Prominent among other speakers were Tehreek's president Rehmat Ali Wardag, Multan Zila Nazim Riaz Qureshi and Haider Usman Malik.