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| 4, April 2005 | Monday | 24 Safar 1426 |
Construct Kalabagh dam, demands PEC
LAHORE, April, 3: The Pakistan Engineering Congress on Sunday asked the government to “immediately start constructing Kalabagh dam as it was the only feasible mega project currently available to the nation.”
Addressing a press conference, PEC President Rana Saeed Ahmad Khan said the government should start construction of the dam ignoring opposition by certain quarters.
Flanked by PEC Secretary Syed Mansoob Ali Zaidi, Rana Khurshid Anwar, Pir Jamil Shah, Salimullah Khan, Dr Izharul Haq and Abdul Qadir, he said the country had no other option except to start the construction of dam instantly for averting famine in the country.
The PEC —- a recognized body having fully representative base among engineering community —- claims that its interest is in line with the national interest.
Failure to build the dam would mean permanent 35 per cent water shortage in the Southern Punjab and Sindh and the country would end up importing four million ton wheat every year. In addition to that, the Southern Sindh will be inundated because of irregular river flow during the flood season every year and a famine-like situation would grip the rest of the country.
Mr Khan was of the view that Kalabagh dam was only ready-to-construct project and sufficient to cater to immediate water requirements of the country in near future.
The other option — Basha dam — would only be completed in 2016 or 2018. By that time, Pakistan will have to import wheat worth Rs6 billion every year, he claimed.
The PEC chief said Pakistan had been wasting 35 million acre feet (MAF) water annually to the sea because of lack of storage facilities in the country.
For the last 18 years, Pakistan had been unable to build any dam and India added 28 big dams, China 250, Turkey 113, Iran 52 and Japan 97 dams.
The PEC president said the engineering community saw three possible dam sites on Indus for storing around 35maf water for agriculture purposes. They included Sakardu, Bhasha and Kalabagh.
Of them, construction of Sakardu dam was almost impossible as it would submerge the entire Sakardu and suburban valleys. Basha dam could be built after reconstructing 140km Karakoram Highway and would only be completed in 2016. Kalabagh dam could be completed by 2012, he said.
He asserted that the Kalabagh dam could save the country an amount of Rs24 trillion which it otherwise would be losing in agriculture, irrigation and power losses.
He alleged that some engineers were creating confusion on vital issue of dam construction because of political interest.
They were trying to misguide politicians on technical issues, he said and added: “Sindh will get additional water from Kalabagh dam and there would be no loss to agriculture in Naushera.
On the occasion, PEC Secretary Syed Mansoob Zaidi claimed that many politicians from Sindh and NWFP agreed on the construction of Kalabagh dam and deemed it a feasible project. But they did not want to support it owing to their long-standing opposition to the project. The government should not wait for an elusive consensus on building dams as it was purely a technical matter. —Staff Reporter
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