The country is facing serious water shortage for farming to meet the food and energy requirements of the burgeoning population. The population of 32.4 million in 1948 increased to 152.4 million in 2004-05 and is estimated to increase to 220 million by 2025.Even the conservative estimates indicate that it may increase to 208 million by this time.

As a result, Pakistan will have a shortfall of 11 million tons of major food grains by 2010 and 16 million tons by 2020. This food grain deficit will increase to 28 million tons by 2025 .

This reflects on the grave situation that the country will face unless a policy decision on the construction of new dams is taken, purely on technical and economical rather than on political grounds. It is a tragedy that none of the previous governments took any decision to build new major dam/reservoir after the construction of Tarbela reservoir in 1976.

On the other hand, the original storage capacity of 15.24 maf of Mangala Dam(5.34), Chashma Barrage (0.5 maf) and Tarbela Reservoir(9.40MAF) has declined by 4.68 maf by 2003 due to sedimentation and may further decrease by six maf by 2010. Since the issue has been highly politicized, a review of the Indus River System and its potential is made as under :

The flow of River Indus and its tributaries constitute the main source of surface water for the country. According to the Indus Water Treaty, the flow of three eastern rivers namely Beas, Sutlej and Ravi was conceded to India, while Pakistan is mostly dependent on three western rivers— Indus (including Kabul),Jhelum and Chenab. The decision though more favourable to India was agreed by General Ayub Khan.

The completion by India of Wuller ,Bagliar and Krishanganga , Uri-11Pakal Dul and Burser projects on western rivers of Indus, Jhelum and Chenab to which Pakistan has the exclusive right according to the 1960 Indus Basin Treaty, will create serious water shortage. It will also enable India to divert water of western rivers as it already did once and created problems for Pakistan. Moreover, India can release water from eastern rivers during high floods, thus damaging crops in adjoining the areas along the eastern rivers in Pakistan’s Punjab.

It is argued by the opposition parties in NWPP that construction of Kalabagh Dam will flood Noshera and lot of fertile areas will be waterlogged,besides displacing a large number of people. It is interesting that General Ayub Khan decided to built Tarbela Reservoir in Haripur and adjoining areas in NWFP instead of Kalabagh Dam in spite of the fact that there was not that much opposition at that time to build it.

Moreover, the initial loan taken from the World Bank for the construction of Kalabagh was diverted for the construction of Tarbela Reservoir. Thousands of people were displaced and vast area was covered by Tarbela Reservoir and water-logging.But none of these opposition parties of NWFP raised any objection at that time as they are making now ,because royalty for hydropower of this reservoir was to be made to NWFP.

Punjab did not oppose these twin decisions of General Ayub Khan but also provided land to most of the people displaced due to the construction of Tarbela.

Again, the opposition parties are agitating against the construction of Kalabagh Dam, because it will cover lot of land of NWFP and displace thousands of people of the province. But they agree for the construction of Bhasha and other dams in Northern areas, despite the fact that Kalabagh Dam will cover 2900 acres and displace 42000 people of NWFP, while the rest be built in much bigger area and people displaced will be from Punjab. Bhasha Dam will cover 32000 acres and displace 24 000 people,Akhori Dam will cover 59,200 acres and displace 49,300 people.

Similarly, Skardu-Katzara Dam highly recommended by the technical committee on water resources as the best option, may cover 90,000 acres and displace nearly 160,000peple. Besides, these dams are situated in seismic areas with greater chance of damage as compared to Kalabagh. The politicians should learn a lesson from an earthquake of October 8, 2005 followed by over 1563 seismics of different Ritchter scales.

Besides construction of Bhasha Dam will not only be more expensive and cover good chunk of Karakaram Highway creating problems of having alternate logistic links with China essential for the country’s defence and trade.

The fear of Nowshera being drowned if Kalabagh Dam is to be built, has already been dealt with technically by reducing the height of Kalabagh dam by 10 feet. Construction of Munda Dam simultaneously on River Swat will further remove the risk of flooding Nowshera. Again, Charsada and Mardan are over 50 feet higher than the height of the Kalabagh Dam. As a result, these areas will not be affected by seepage. Other reason for agreeing to Bhasha and other dams over Kalabagh Dam by the opposition parties is that Punjab will not be able to get link canals from any one of the other dams built upstream.

In spite of the fact that power generation of 3600-MW of Kalabagh would have no logistic problem and would be much cheaper for the consumers as compared to that generated at Bhasha due to logistic problems of longer distance and higher cost of installation of power turbines, NWFP insists on the construction of Bhasha Dam. The main reason is that it will enable the province to claim royalty as the power turbines will be located in the province.

Various figures were given by Wapda and national and international consultants for the loss of Indus water to the sea below Kotri since the commissioning of Tarbela Reservoir since 2003. These figures vary mostly between 30-40MAF. However, according to the Report of the technical committee on Water Resources (Annexure 11-6), the escapage of water below Kotri is 34.65 maf. But the seven members of the committee in their report of May 2005 have worked out their own computations of average water availability on down steam basis as 32.70 maf.

Again, different figures varying from 10 to over 10 maf of water have been given for down flow from Kotri to prevent sea intrusion and adverse effects on mangroves along the Sindh coast and protection of fish fauna.It is strange that the Technical Committee on Water Resources has not bothered to mention the potential of saving this water by constructing dyke along the sea intrusion zone and using this additional saved water according to 1991 Agreement for water distribution to various provinces.

If a country like Holland situated below sea level can protect it self by constructing dykes along its sea shore, why this technology could not be used along the sea intrusion zone in Pakistan for saving its precious water resource.

The Technical Committee on Water Resources indicates that storable surplus water is available only for 10 years out of 28 years on the basis of post-Tarbela period flows. The study also reveals that a dam of 6.0 maf at Kalabagh will be able to trap only 22 per cent of the surplus flood flows, while another dam of 6.0 maf will trap 18.9 per cent of the flood flows. These two dams together will trap about 41 per cent of surplus water and the rest 59 per cent of surplus flows will still remain un-utilized.

They further stated that a carryover dam like Skardu-Katzara with 35 maf capacity will utilize 84 per cent of this surplus water. However Wapda differed with this figure and stated that it will have carry over capacity of 27 maf. The technical committee recommended Kalabagh, Bhasha and Skardu-Katzara dam(with greater storage life period) and recommended greater priority for completing feasibility study of the last one , as the feasibility studies of the earlier two dams have already been completed.

Nevertheless, other members of the technical committee have divergent views than those of the Chairman of the Committee Mr Abbasi.

It is also surprising that this technical committee did not mention any thing on desalination of our huge sea water resource and using it for drinking and agricultural purposes along our 1050 km coastal region in Sindh and Balochistan.

There are over 200 centres in the world where sea water is being desalinized for drinking and agricultural purposes by utilizing the latest economical desalination technologies.

Nevertheless, it augurs well for the country that a decision has been finally taken by the government that the construction of Basha and Munda Dams will start from February, 2006 and that of other dams including Kalabagh, Akori, Skurdu-katzara etc, etc will be considered later on.