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| May 28, 2006 | Sunday | Rabi-us-Sani 29, 1427 |
Floods delay small dams’ completion
KOHAT, May 27: Floods and heavy rains in the upper Teerah Valley have again delayed completion of the remaining five per cent work on three under-construction small dams.
Due to the persisting problem of heavy water flow since beginning of work on the dams, the Asian Development Bank had placed them in the second phase of the Drought Emergency Relief Assistance (DERA-2) programme under which 20 other small dams were also to be constructed at a cost of Rs1.8 billion, an official of the regional small dams project told Dawn here on Saturday
Four dams approved under DERA-1 were to be completed by December 2005 and engineers believed that they would complete the work by mid-January 2006.
One of the dams has been completed and deadline for the remaining three dams has been extended to July next. The cost of the four dams had been revised twice, which now stands at Rs780 million.
About the delay in completion of the projects, the official said the reservoirs remained full round the year which was causing problems because the dams had no tunnels from where the flow of water could be stopped.
He said they had tried to release the water for irrigation purposes before completion of the dams but it did not help because water flow due to heavy rains and melting of snow never stopped in this part of the region.
The auxiliary Khandar Dam has been made operational, but several months behind schedule, and Sharki and Changoz dams in the Karak district and the Naryab dam in the Hangu district are needed to be completed.
The official said that with the construction of the Khandar dam the storage capacity of the downstream old dam had been restored to 100 per cent from 43 per cent. Accumulation of silt had decreased the storage capacity of the old dam, which was now being controlled by the auxiliary reservoir, he added.
He said the four dams would have storage capacity of up to 31,478 acres feet of water, which would irrigate 12,398 acres of land.
He maintained that under DERA-2, only 12 dams of the planned 20 dams could be constructed due to financial constraints. However, he said, the government was trying to achieve the target of 20 dams by including some in the PSDP and arranging required funds through federal and provincial grants.
Consultants have submitted feasibility reports of the 12 dams and work on them is expected to start during the second quarter of the next fiscal. Sites identified for the dams included Zamir Gul, Darmalak, Nakband, Sumari Payan and Surgul in the Kohat district, Tora Warai and Barga Nathu in Hangu and Bannu respectively and Ghol, Lawaghar, Mardan Khel and Pail in the Karak district.
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