LAHORE, Jan 12: The Water and Power Development Authority is now having a fresh look at its earlier recommendations on the three proposed dams -- Kalabagh, Bhasha and Akhori, claims Jehangir Tareen, a member of the parliamentary committee of water resources.

Talking to Dawn here on Monday, he said around 320 kilometres of the Karakoram Highway had to be upgraded for building the proposed Bhasha dam. But, Wapda, in its earlier study, had excluded the cost of work on the highway. "Now it is in consultation with the National Highway Authority to estimate the cost and will make it part of the project's total cost," he added.

Besides, the authority had earlier estimated two years for the completion of uplift, but now it had decided to let the NHA decide the duration, he said.Similarly, he said, the authority did not consider a huge cost it had to spend on laying over 500-kilometre transmission line in a highly-active seismic zone. By excluding both these costs, the authority had equalled the cost of Bhasha dam with that of the Kalabagh. However, with new management taking over, the authority was now giving a fresh look to all its earlier estimates.

Wapda had estimated the cost of both the dams at around $5.29 billion each in June last and asked the federal government to take a decision. Now, it would refresh all its estimates and may make some new recommendation in future, he expected.

Although these three factors went against the Bhasha dam, its total energy production was more than what the Kalabagh dam would give, he said. "Both the dams have a generation capacity of 3,600mw each, but the total annual generation of Bhasha dam will be over 17,000 million units whereas Kalabagh will produce over 11,000 million units."

Mr Tareen said Akhori dam, which was considered to be the easiest project, would have the generation capacity of 600mw only and could only be used as an irrigation dam. "All the three dams have advantages and disadvantages, but engineering solutions to all these problems are possible. But the country has to take a decision on the basis of its economy and cost-benefit analysis."

About progress on other contentious water distribution areas, he said, steady progress was being made on all fronts. "All the provinces have agreed to conduct studies on the environmental impact of water scarcity. If Sindh wanted to ascertain water requirement downstream Kotri barrage, others wanted to know what was required upstream Kotri. Apparently, there shouldn't have been any clash of interest, he added.

The government, he said, had allowed all the federating units to come up with terms of reference of such studies and they would soon be launched. Once these requirements were ascertained, the supply of water for them would naturally be solved in the best possible way.

But, it was only be possible if political dimension of the issues was not ignored, as had been done in the last few decades. The government should be able to decide and prioritize storages and distribution system by June this year, he said.