LAHORE, March 27: The Pakistan Water and Power Development Authority completed 17.4MW Gomal Zam Power House, finishing the first-ever mega project in the water sector constructed in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).
The power house, currently on test run, will start providing electricity to the national grid in a month. The project, located in the South Waziristan Agency, consists of three main components including dam, power house and irrigation system.
The dam was completed last year, the power house is now complete, while the irrigation system is at the advanced stage of completion. The gross storage capacity of the project is 1.14 million acre feet (MAF) of water to irrigate 163,000 acres of land.
The power house will contribute 91 million units of electricity annually to the system, which is sufficient to supply power to about 25,000 households.
The Gomal Zam Dam project is of immense importance for the socio-economic uplift of the populace of remote areas, particularly Fata and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The project will ensure availability of water for irrigated agriculture, control floods and provide low-cost hydel electricity.
The United States Agency for International Development had provided $40 million to help complete the main dam and the power house.
Another $40 million are also being provided by the USAID for the completion of irrigation component of the project and $12 million are committed to the development of the Waran Canal System.
