ISLAMABAD: With the completion of the Rs13 billion Gomal Zam Dam in South Waziristan after a delay of over four years, the authorities began on Tuesday filling its reservoir which will lead to full power generation before the end of the year.A senior official told Dawn on Tuesday that the filling was a crucial stage which would make the dam fully operational.

The 120-metre high rolled concrete dam has a water storage capacity of 1.1 million acre feet and a generation capacity of 17.5MW.

Its construction was taken up in 2002 but Chinese contractors working on the project terminated the contract after the kidnapping and then killing of a Chinese engineer in October 2006.

The contractors asked the government and Wapda to renegotiate the project cost on the basis of market prices but their plea was rejected on grounds that renegotiation could lead to litigation by competing contractors.

The project was awarded to the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) and the USAID agreed to contribute $40 million of which $25 million has already been disbursed.

The dam is estimated to irrigate more than 191,000 acres of land in Tank and D.I. Khan districts and help expand crop areas and yield.

The official said it was one of six major projects in the water and energy sector in which the United States was helping Pakistan.

The USAID has committed an amount of $134.4 million for projects which would generate 430MW of electricity.

About $44 million has already been disbursed under the scheme that seeks rehabilitation of the power sector to regain lost generation capacity of Tarbela dam, Jamshoro, Guddu and Muzaffargarh thermal power stations, besides the construction of Gomal Zam and Satpara multi-purpose dams.

The US is spending its committed grants through Advanced Engineering Association International—a US-based engineering firm—by utilising advanced engineering equipment.

The cost of setting up 430MW thermal stations in Pakistan is estimated at $400 million at the rate of about one million dollar per megawatt.