WALI Tangi Dam is a small earth rockfill dam about 20km on the Quetta-Urak Road and a few kilometres from the Urak springs. Built in 1961 to provide drinking water to Quetta, the dam today is a picture of complete neglect.

The road to the dam was washed away two years ago, and it is not easily appr- oachable anymore. When filled to full capacity, it can supply 20 per cent of the water needs of Quetta city all through the year. Today, Quetta suffers from water starvation as this huge source of supply lies inactive and unattended (image courtesy: Dawn social media page).

The dam has no functional outlet as the one that was provided ended up getting choked soon after construction. In time, the left abutment, meaning the concrete walls against which the dam was constructed, developed a major crack. The water flowing from the crack is collected in a channel and supplied to the service reservoir. However, only 40,000 gallons of water per day is available against a design capacity of 250,000 gallons.

Further, the dam has an inadequate spillway, the part of a dam that is de- signed to allow water to flow freely over the dam during floods. There is no one attending the dam, so the dam has been ‘over-topped’ several times, which is one of the most dangerous conditions for a rockfill dam to face. The gates have been washed away as there has been no one there to operate them.

As things stand, the dam is nothing but a useless wall today. Therefore, the relevant authorities and the political administration of the province should focus on taking all the necessary steps to restore the dam without any further delay.

Iqbal Mirza Nazar
Karachi

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2024