LAHORE: A vast ma­jor­i­ty in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) is in fa­vour of Kalabagh dam that can be proved through a ref­er­en­dum, ac­cord­ing to Mardan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) President Zahir Shah.

“Devastating floods taught a les­son to the peo­ple of the KP that wa­ter res­er­voirs were the on­ly sol­u­tion to avoid any such even­tual­i­ty in fu­ture,” said Mr Shah at a meet­ing at Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Thursday.

The MCCI pres­i­dent said the Mardan cham­ber would work hand in hand with the Lahore cham­ber to de­vel­op a con­sen­sus among the fed­er­at­ing units for the ear­ly con­struc­tion of the dam, which had been po­liti­cised for “noth­ing”.

“Kalabagh dam should be built with­out de­lay as it is the life­line of Pakistan econ­o­my,” said Mr Shah.

“The Mardan cham­ber will be at the fore­front if a move­ment to pave the way for con­struc­tion of KBD is launched.”

Earlier, LCCI President Engineer Sohail Lashari said a Lahore cham­ber com­mit­tee on Kalabagh dam hav­ing a num­ber of re­nowned ex­perts in its fold had been tasked with evolv­ing its rec­om­men­da­tions for the ear­ly de­vel­op­ment of the mega proj­ect of vi­tal na­tion­al im­por­tance.

The LCCI and the Mardan cham­ber inked a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing (MoU) to wage joint ef­forts and pool their re­sour­ces for the pro­mo­tion of trade and in­dus­try in their re­spec­tive areas.

Under the MoU, both cham­bers will evolve a uni­fied strat­egy on the is­sues of com­mon in­ter­est, share and ex­change all trade-re­la­ted da­ta with each oth­er for in­creas­ing com­pet­i­tive­ness of goods and re­duc­ing cost of do­ing busi­ness.

Both cham­bers will al­so co­op­er­ate in prep­a­ra­tion of pro­pos­als for ex­cise and tax­a­tion mat­ters, budg­et­ary rec­om­men­da­tions and oth­er na­tion­al pol­i­cies be­sides con­duct­ing joint re­search stud­ies to strength­en in­dus­tries in their re­spec­tive areas.

Published in Dawn, May 23rd, 2014