LAHORE, Oct 4: Irrigation and dam experts have urged the federal government to give preference to Kalabagh dam over Bhasha for various engineering and technical reasons.

They were expressing their views at a meeting of the Water Resource Development Council (WRDC) that was attended, among others, by former Wapda chairman Lt-Gen Safdar Butt (retired) who was associated with the construction of Karakoram Highway (KKH), former provincial irrigation secretary Eng Mazhar Ali who was associated with the signing of the Indus Waters Treaty, Eng Suleman Najib Khan, irrigation and power expert, Mr Abbasi, former member power, Punjab Water Council president Riaz Malhi, financial and economic expert Dr Muhammad Yaqub, Punjab university's dean of Faculty of Sciences Dr Mujahid Kamran and engineers working in Wapda and various engineering organizations.

They were unanimous that, while all detailed engineering investigation and design of the Kalabagh project had been completed many years ago, its construction work could be taken in hand immediately after acceptance of its international tenders whereas the construction of the Basha dam could not be taken up before five or six years required for its detailed engineering and geological investigation, designing and tendering etc.

Dr G.S. Butt said that the most important work before the construction of Basha dam was the upgradation of about 200km of the KKH from Thakot to Basha, required for the transportation of heavy equipment and material to the dam site.

He said that the present highway was not strong nor wide enough to handle the load of heavy steel fabrication parts like huge turbines, power generators, truck loads of cement, concrete, heavy machinery.

He said that the road would be upgraded, further strengthened and widened with more gradual curves on turns and gentle road gradients for careful transportation.

He said that based on his personal experience on the KKH, this gigantic work would require four to five years and not two years as suggested by some planners. Its cost would also be several times the amount estimated by the study team.

He said that in addition to the upgrading the 200 km of KKH a portion of about 140 km of the road that would be permanently submerged in the Basha reservoir, would have to be rebuilt at higher elevations.

He said that the rebuilding of this portion of KKH could continue in a careful and organized manner concurrently with the dam construction over a much longer period because it would come under water after completion of the dam when the impounding of the reservoir would start.

Gen Butt pointed out that the long and highly expensive power transmission lines carrying electricity from Basha power house back to the Indus valley was yet another difficult task, including the subsequent maintenance of the lines for all times to come.

The engineers have chosen a very high voltage of 765 kilovolt (kv) as against the present maximum of 500 kv in Pakistan and 220 kv in India. He said that choice for such a high voltage of transmission lines had been made perhaps to reduce power losses on way but the major problem was that the switch gears equipment for 765 kv was not available anywhere in the world.

Special orders would be placed to the transmission lines manufacturers of the world. He said that it was a typical problem associated with the development off such dam sites i.e. to transport almost everything to a far inaccessible site of construction, and then transport electricity down to the consumers up to Karachi.

He said that 920 feet high Basha dam was proposed to be built in Roller compacted concrete (RCC) which was the cheapest and quicker way as compared with the conventional vibrated concrete (CVC). However, because of vulnerability of RCC dams to leakage and cracking, the world-engineering experts exercise great care by improving methodologies. They also take extreme care in approving an increase in the dam heights.

China, Japan and Columbia have achieved record heights of 425, 460 and 620 feet, respectively, in recent years. Basha dam's height was thus about 50 per cent higher than the highest dam built so far. Engineers were not choosing CVC or Rock fill dam with earth because of the long haulage costs of materials that would make the dam cost prohibitively expensive.

He warned that if Basha was constructed in RCC to save on cement quantities, time and costs etc, leaky joints and ultimate failure could generate a 500 feet high water wave from the 900 feet deep reservoir which would travel downstream leaving no other dam such as Tarbela, barrage or bridge across the Indus River intact, washing down everything on way right up to its outfall into the Arabian Sea.

Slush leaving behind a mound of sediment as high as 200 feet would destroy River bank cities such as Attock. He said that Basha dam needed to be studied far more thoroughly and in depth involving foreign experts, particularly from China that have worked on similar projects. A crash study of the type conducted so far was an adventurous and risky undertaking that could prove disastrous for the nation, he cautioned.

He said that a safe and sound Basha dam could not be completed before 2018 as against the 260 feet high Kalabagh dam that had been studied by local and foreign experts over a period of 15 years and one, which could be commissioned by 2012.

"Wisdom also demands that more economical project be undertaken first, followed by far and farther sites as the national economy grows. "Dr Butt said that pragmatically the government should announce simultaneous construction of both the online dams. In practical terms, it would mean start of the first phase of Basha dam (up gradation of KKH) concurrently with the construction of Kalabagh dam.

Another senior engineer Suleman Najib Khan of the Water Resource Development Council (WRDC) said that said that if the federal government failed to start work on the Kalabagh dam project immediately, the country would be in for what he called a severe energy and food crisis.

He said that if the Kalabagh dam was not taken up and the government kept on sleeping over it for fear of the opposition of some political elements, the future generations would not forgive the present one for its criminal negligence whatever the reasons might be.

He said that Wapda which had the credit of building the gigantic Indus Basin works which included two manor Mangla and Tarbela dams, a number of barrages and link canals and had increased the energy production over 100 times in just four decades had been rendered ineffective by imposing various government restrictions on its functioning as an autonomous organization.

He said that previous governments had stopped Wapda from building any new thermal power stations but there was also a deliberate attempt to slow down the hydropower projects.

Pakistan was wasting about 25 million acre feet of water worth about $ 50 billion per year, all due to lack of will, national unity and simple common sense. By taking away the power distribution and asking the distribution companies not to assist WAPDA it had become almost insolvent and had no funds to carry on its various projects.

He said hat since Wapda would be implementing the future water and power projects, it has to be made solvent again. The entire Indus Basin irrigation system's productivity depended upon on the strength of hydro-power works of Wapda that was, in fact, the prime mover of Pakistan's national economy.