SWABI: Due to high water inflow, the construction work and other activities on Tarbela Fifth Extension Hydropower Project have been stopped by the authorities and the workers were told to leave and wait for the resumption of work, sources and workers told Dawn on Saturday.

The construction work on the project, which is built on tunnel five had started in July 2021, was expected to be completed next year but it seemed it would be delayed, said the sources.

When contacted a prominent Wapda official and officials at Tarbela Dam told Dawn on phone that the work had been stopped because the dam reservoir had ben filled, and due to increasing inflow of floodwaters the construction activities had been stopped as there was no option and they workers should wait for normalisation of the situation.

They said that due to the rising water level in the reservoir they were forced to stop the construction work and various other activities.

Stoppage due to increased inflow renders workers ‘jobless’

“Right now the main spillway is kept open for releasing the increased water inflow and the water inflow was being monitored round the clock,” said one of them.

Sharing the water inflow and outflow with Dawn, the Wapda officer said the reservoirs levels on Saturday the inflow in Indus River at Tarbela was 418300 cusecs and outflow 376200 cusecs, inflow in Kabul River at Nowshera was 76900 cusecs and outflow 76900 cusecs, at Khairabad Bridge the inflows was 353700 cusecs and outflows 353700, inflow in Jhelum at Mangla was 69500 cusecs and outflow 7700 cusecs, and in Chenab at Marala the inflow was 92800 cusecs and outflow 63200 cusecs.

About reservoirs level and the storage, he said that Tarbela Dam’s minimum operating level is 1402 feet; present level is 1547.94, while maximum conservation level is 1550 feet, and live storage today was 5.610 million acre-feet (MAF).

Meanwhile, when contacted the workers said that the stoppage of construction activities had rendered them jobless and they had no other sources of income.

“The biggest problem now for the poor workers is that they couldn’t work anywhere else, just waiting for the project authorities’ call for resumption of the construction activities at the project, which might take more than a month,” said a worker on condition of anonymity.

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2025