GILGIT, Jan 20: Elected representatives of Diamer district on Thursday threatened to launch a protest campaign throughout the Northern Areas against the government’s decision to construct Bhasha Dam without taking local people into confidence. The elected representatives passed a unanimous resolution to this effect at an emergency meeting convened on Thursday in the district headquarters of Chilas.

Sources said the meeting was attended by the Northern Areas Legislative Council members Fidaullah Advocate, Hyder Khan and former chairman Gilgit-Baltistan National Alliance (GBNA) Inayatullah Shimali, Diamer district council chairman Saeed Afzal, Chilas Municipality chairman Muhammad Wakeel, former NALC advisor Janbaz Khan and PML leader Bashir Ahmed Khan.

In their speeches elected members and politicians said that following the construction of Bhasha Dam more than 40,000 people in the area would be affected. They said that undertaking mega projects without the consent of local people would not be in the larger interest of the country.

They said that vested interests had been trying to pass off Bhasha as the proposed name of the dam even though the site existed within the territorial jurisdiction of Diamer district in the Northern Areas. According to them, people of the Northern Areas would not permit its construction unless it was renamed Diamer dam.

They claimed that a conspiracy was afoot to deprive the people of Northern Areas of royalty and pass on the same benefits to the people of the NWFP.

They expressed surprise that the government had not even bothered to consult the people of Northern Areas before announcing plans to build the reservoir.

According to sources, the deputy chief executive of the Northern Areas had advised public consultation on the proposed project which he said ought to be named Diamer dam.

While the whole land under the proposed Bhasha dam falls in the Northern Areas, the sources said, the NWFP is to reap undue benefits from mere on-site location of a power station.

Relevant technical documents have shown that it is possible to have power stations on both sides of the river and problems could be resolved through shifting it from the left to the right bank of the Indus river. It was decided in the meeting of the intra-provincial committee held in 1999 that either Article 161(2) of the Constitution of Pakistan to give incentives to the people of the Northern Areas could be amended or the boundaries between Northern Areas and NWFP could be redrawn.

The former minister told the meeting that according to valid documents of the British Raj, land falling on the left and right banks of the Indus were part of the Northern Areas and the issue of hydel profit should be resolved to avoid a Kalabagh like controversy.

According to Article 161(2) of the constitution “the net profits earned by the federal government, or any undertaking established or administered by the federal government, from the bulk generation of the power at a hydro-electric station shall be paid to the province in which the hydro electric station is situated”.

However, experts said the Northern Areas (Gilgit-Baltistan) did not fall in the constitutional ambit of Pakistan and pointed out that the construction of a dam outside the territorial jurisdiction of Pakistan was tantamount to depriving people of their fundamental rights in the affected area.