PESHAWAR, July 22: The Awami National Party (ANP) has appreciated the stand taken by the governments of Sindh and the NWFP on the Kalabagh dam project during a meeting of the parliamentary committee on water resources held on Tuesday.

"ANP felicitates the chief ministers of NWFP and Sindh, Mr Akram Khan Durrani and Arbab Ghulam Rahim, for openly opposing the construction of Kalabagh dam without fearing the consequences," said Haji Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, Senior Vice-President of the ANP.

Mr Bilour, who is also head of his party's committee constituted to block execution of the large dam project at Kalabagh, said Mr Durrani and Mr Rahim truly represented the people of two provinces and communicated their peoples' concern to the federal authorities.

During a meeting of the federal government's parliamentary committee on water resources held on Tuesday, the chief ministers of Sindh and NWFP rejected the execution of the Kalabagh dam project.

While appreciating Sindh and the NWFP's open opposition to Kalabagh dam project, Mr Bilour also appreciated the federal parliamentary committee's success in making the four federating units to develop consensus vis-a-vis construction of a large dam upstream Tarbela dam at Bhasha.

"It is a good omen for the country that the four provinces have developed consensus over the construction of a large dam at Bhasha," said Mr Bilour in a press statement issued here on Wednesday.

Repeating ANP's stand on the issue, Mr Bilour said that the Bhasha dam project would be cost-effective in comparison with the Kalabagh dam project.

It would involve total electric power generation capacity of 3,600mw in comparison with maximum 1,600mw power generation capacity in the case of Kalabagh dam.

Similarly, he added, Bhasha dam project would involve larger water reservoir than the Kalabagh dam project. Whereas, the former would displace about 10,000 people in comparison with the displacement of more than 100,000 people in the case of Kalabagh dam.

"While the Kalabagh dam project would play havoc with agriculture land in five of the districts of the NWFP - Peshawar, Charsadda, Nowshera, Mardan and Swabi - it would make Sindh to experience water shortages lending negative impact to its cultivable land."

He said the government should go for constructing the Bhasha dam project. Because being upstream Tarbela dam - the country's largest water storage and hydle power generation project on River Indus - the proposed Bhasha dam project would increase the life of Tarbela dam's water reservoir by about 50 years.