ISLAMABAD, Feb 7: Two organisations representing farmers and the business community of Sindh have appealed to President Gen Pervez Musharraf to review his assessments on the construction of dams and canals on the River Indus.

The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) and Sindh Abadgar Board (SAB) have said that the people of the province had been consistently expressing their “technically well founded” concerns on the construction of dam on the River Indus. The provincial assemblies of the NWFP and Sindh had also passed similar resolutions against the construction of the Kalabagh dam.

The organisations, in a joint statement issued here on Wednesday, have asked the president to also study the more economical alternatives that are still available before going for the implementation of any future strategy for water storage.

They said the World Bank (WB) evaluation found in 1996 that water conservation measures saved more water than the largest new dam and also cost one-fifth of the total cost of constructing a new dam. The cost of Kalabagh dam may be $15billion as reported by the WB. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimated that additional 4.7 million acre feet (MAF) of water could be provided by the conservation measures at a cost of $1.7billion.

According to the president of the Sindh Chamber of Agriculture, Syed Qamar Zaman Shah, reports appeared in the media suggested that there was simply no surplus water to entertain the idea of any future dam.

He said the requirement of the Kalabagh dam was 104MAF against the availability of 90MAF, which showed that there was already a shortfall of 14MAF.

Sindh Abadgar Board president Abdul Majid Nizamani said the Technical Committee on Water Resources headed by A. N. G. Abbasi had made various recommendations which should be taken into consideration for any future strategy for construction and regulation of any irrigation works because, it was Gen Musharraf himself who had appointed the committee.

The A. G. N. Abbasi committee had reported that there was no surplus water available except in occasional high flood years which occurs once in five or 10 years.

He said that it was also claimed that there was an inflow of 90 MAF at Kalabagh (including flow of the River Kabul), which justified the construction of the Kalabagh dam. In fact, Mr Nizamani added, the average inflow of Kalabagh was not even sufficient to meet the downstream requirements.

He explained that according to the inter-provincial water distribution accord, there was 18 MAF water available for distribution, while 13 MAF went to system loses, and 10 MAF outflow to the sea. This amounted to 104 MAF.

If, additional requirements of Kalabagh (6.1MAF), Akori (7MAF), Munda (1MAF), Kurrum Tangi (1MAF), Gomal Zam (I MAF) and Left Bank Outfall Drain (2.2MAF) was added to the total requirement would go beyond 134.3MAF against the availability of 90MAF, he added.