WITH the unprecedented flood havoc going on, some people have still not shed their politicised thinking. When everyone is talking about the need for building the Kalabagh dam, one expert said that instead of the Kalabagh dam we should build the Bhasha dam. When the other expert pointed out that the Bhasha dam is outside the monsoon range and it is the monsoons in the catchment areas of Jhelum and Chenab rivers which have caused the very heavy floods, he kept insisting that the Bhasha dam must be built instead of the Kalabagh dam.

He said global warming would increase snow melt from glaciers which the Bhasha dam will store, while the other expert corrected him to say that global warming will increase the monsoons even more. He kept harping against the Kalabagh dam, giving out wrong figures about the number of people who would be displaced, but did not give the figure of the people who would benefit from the dam in the shape of cheap electricity and ample water for irrigation.

Engr Khurshid Anwer

Lahore

Published in Dawn, September 15th , 2014