RAWALPINDI: Without acquiring land from the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) and Bahria Town, the Punjab government has sought tenders for the feasibility study of the Daducha Dam.

The provincial irrigation department asked the firms to submit their expression of interest by April 1 for the feasibility study.

The Punjab government has released Rs48 million for the feasibility study which will be completed within one year.

The dam was proposed in 2001 by the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) and the Small Dams Organisation (SDO) in the village of Daducha. However, the project could not be launched during the tenures of the PML-Q and PML-N Punjab governments.

In 2006, the DHA purchased the 18,000 kanals of land where the dam was to be built and launched a housing scheme as a joint venture with Bahria Town there.

In 2011, the Supreme Court in a suo motu case directed the Punjab government to start work on the dam at the originally proposed site. Soon after the apex court directives, the provincial government froze the sale and purchase of land in the area.

But the land acquisition could not be started even after two years for the dam. And now the government has started the feasibility study without securing the land.

“The government wanted to first complete the feasibility study and then start acquiring the land next year. The proposed site for the dam is currently under the occupation of the DHA,” said SDO superintending engineer Mirza Zafar Hussain while talking to Dawn on Friday.

He said the land would be available to the government as it had Supreme Court’s directions for the construction of the dam.

The official said the government had released Rs48 million for the feasibility study. It will take over one year to complete the study of the location, topographical survey, prepare geo-technical and environment impact assessment reports, he added.

According to the initial report, the Daducha Dam would provide 25 million gallon of water daily to the garrison city. It will cater to the city’s need of potable water for the next 50 years.

At present, Rawalpindi gets 16 MGD water from the Rawal and Khanpur dams and 22 MGD from over 300 tubewells against its total need of 50 MGD.

The water supply from the Khanpur Dam is not enough to fulfil the requirements of the cantonment areas and city’s nine union councils.

Sources said a water crisis was feared to hit the city in the coming days if small dams were not built in three or four years. They said the city’s water demand would shoot up to 79 MGD in the next 20 years while the underground water level was receding rapidly.