LAHORE: Pakistan is paying an annual price of Rs132 billion for failure to build the Kalabagh dam (KBD) and province-wise cost tag is: Punjab Rs68bn, Sindh Rs40bn, KP Rs18bn and Balochistan Rs6bn, says former caretaker minister for water and power and ex-Wapda chairman Shamsul Mulk.

Speaking at a function held in connection with the World Water Day and arranged by the Pakistan Engineer Congress, he said the cost included both – cost of energy and irrigation.

“In the 20th century, 46,000 medium and large dams have been built in the world; out of them China built 22,000, the USA 6,575, and India 4,291. Pakistan built only 68 medium dams,” he said.

Mulk said if one dam like Kalabagh was so harmful for Pakistan, the construction of thousands of dams should have destroyed the entire world, and especially the three countries mentioned above. But the world in general, and these countries in particular progressed immensely.

The former minister insisted that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, his own province, needed it more than any other federating unit.

Shamsul Mulk reiterates pro-dam arguments, expounds technicalities

“For KP, there is no alternative to Kalabagh due to the location of the irrigable area. The irrigable areas of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan are in the plains and thus can easily be commanded through gravity flow. In case of KP, the land available and suitable for agriculture is 800,000 acres located in Bannu and D.I. Khan districts.”

Mulk added: “This land is in the form of plateaus at about 50 feet to 150 feet above the Indus, as it flows along the eastern boundaries of these districts. While three provinces would have no problem in receiving its share, the share of KP would need to be raised by 50 to 150 feet to commend the irrigable area.

“There are two ways to raise the Indus waters to those heights. One is to pump it (lift irrigation) and the other is to build Kalabagh dam, creating a reservoir that will raise water to a height easily commanding the plateaus and thus irrigate these lands by gravity.

“Because of scarcity and higher electricity price, the cost for lift irrigation will be Rs5,000 per acre per year. For the gravity irrigation, it is a mere Rs400 to Rs500 per year per acre. Such an inequity between the provinces is dangerous for the federation.”

He insisted that the slogan “federation is more important than Kalabagh is a factual fabrication and falsehood.”

“The correct slogan is Kalabagh is important for the federation, for national development and for all the people of all the provinces,” he said.

President of the congress, Chaudhry Ghulam Husain, in his welcome address, claimed that 30-35 million acre feet water flowed into the sea every year without any productive use.

“Pakistan has only 30-day storage facility in dams compared to 220-day storage in India and 1,000-day in Egypt. According to international standards, 40 per cent of the river flows are required to be stored. Pakistan has only 13.29MAF storage against 58MAF,” he said.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2016