RAWALPINDI, Sept 20: It is not only the controversial Kalabagh dam that awaits national consensus for construction but even small reservoirs proposed solely for meeting the drinking water requirements of Rawalpindi and Islamabad are in the doldrums due to lack of consensus among the authorities of the twin cities.

The construction of Daducha and Cherrah dams conceived in 1998 and the much-talked about Ghazi Barotha water supply scheme have virtually become contentious projects.

Both the projects were conceived by Japan International Cooperative Agency (JICA) 12 years ago for meeting drinking water requirements of the twin cities for the next 50 years.

The Daducha and Cheerah reservoirs are to be built on the Ling and Soan rivers, 12km downstream Simly dam and are expected to provide 25 and 15 million gallons of water daily.

Lack of consensus between Capital Development Authority (CDA) and Small Dams Organisation on the cost and water-sharing formula has not only resulted in the deadlock but also doubled the cost of the projects.

The persistent differences among various stakeholders on the construction of Cherrah dam has pushed the cost of the reservoir to Rs8 billion from the original Rs4.5 billion.

On Wednesday, the Central Development Working Party of the Planning Commission approved the project and the proposal would now be sent to the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) for approval.

However, officials privy to the meeting told this reporter on Saturday that there was still lack of agreement among the stakeholders on the cost and water-sharing formula.

“The CDA wants 50 per cent share in the water but is not ready to bear 50 per cent cost of the project. We oppose this demand, but I hope the issue would be resolved in the next Ecnec meeting,” a source said.

Since 1998, the authorities have made no breakthrough on the construction of the reservoirs except for wasting time and money on preparation of its PC-I and revised PC-I.

According to the PC-I of the dam, about 1,000 kanals of land would be acquired for the structure of Cherrah dam while acquisition of 1,800 kanals would be needed for the construction of Daducha dam.

The existing rate of one kanal at the dam’s site is Rs300,000 while in 2004 it was just Rs120,000.

Interestingly, the Daducha dam site has been occupied by the land mafia which insists that the reservoir would be built by the management of the housing society for its own use. So far no action has been taken by any government department against them.

Under the Ghazi Barotha project floated in 2006, water would be drawn from Indus river through a pipeline to meet the drinking water requirements of Islamabad.

However, the authorities in Rawalpindi intervened and demanded a share in the project which was accepted by CDA after a long when the General Headquarters (GHQ) intervened.

Sadly, the project again went into the cold storage after differences erupted between the stakeholders over the cost-sharing formula as the Punjab government was not ready to bear 50 per cent cost of the project.