September 27, 2006	Wednesday	Ramazan 3, 1427

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RAWALPINDI, Sept 26: In a bid to reduce the cost of the proposed Daducha and Cherrah dams, the executing agencies may slash the amount of compensation for the private land to be acquired for building the dams, Dawn learnt on Tuesday.

A lower cost than the originally estimated Rs14 billion was necessary to win the approval of the project from its financiers, the Punjab government and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (Jica), sources in the Small Dams Organisation (SDO) and the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) said.

The Karachi-based firm of consultants which prepared the project documents for the two dams has been instructed to bring down its original estimate of the total cost from Rs14 billion to Rs8 billion, sources of the two executing agencies said.

They expected the axe to fall on the compensation to be paid for the 9,523 acres of land needed for the two dams. The original cost estimate set Rs6 billion for that land.

That amount is considered not affordable, according to the sources.

“We have estimated the two dams would cost Rs8 billion and told the same to the consultants two weeks ago,” a Wasa source said.

The capacity of the two dams is designed to supply 40 million gallons per day (MGD) of water to Rawalpindi.

The Daducha Dam, to be constructed at village Daducha on Ling River about 45 kilometres from the Rawal Filtration Plant, would cost Rs5 billion, according to the revised estimates.

The dam is planned to supply 25 MGD water to Rawalpindi city and cantonment areas and would be completed in 48 months from the day construction starts.

About 310 families in village Khanpur and Bharwala would be displaced in the process and the Daducha dam feasibility report provides Rs1,078 million as compensation for them.

Cherrah Dam would supply 15 MGD water to Rawalpindi would cost Rs3.5 billion under the revised plan against its earlier cost of Rs8 billion. It would be built on Soan River in district Islamabad.

The site of the dam is located at a distance of about 25 kilometres north-east of Rawalpindi having a design life of 50 years and a catchment area of 375 square kilometres.

Water from the dam would go through a 23 kilometre long ‘conductance main’ to the filtration plant of Rawal Dam before being released to consumers in Rawalpindi.

The route of pipeline from Cherrah Dam runs along the road on north of Nilore Factory and stretches to Lithrar Road upto Rawal Lake filtration plant.

Sources said the revised feasibility report of the projects would be sent to provincial government which was likely to forward it to Central Development Party for sharing the cost with the provincial government.