PESHAWAR: The Munda Dam multi-purpose project will create economic opportunities for farm families in central Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by expanding cultivable area and curtailing flood risks to agriculture sector, according to official sources.

The project, on completion, would expand cultivable area by bringing an additional 15,300 acres under irrigation in Charsadda and Peshawar districts, said a provincial development planner.

The $1.4 billion project, he added, would augment some 108,900 cultivated acres through improved irrigation, improving per acre yield. Besides, the project is imperative for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa because of its projected utility to mitigate flood risks in Charsadda, Nowshera, Mardan and Peshawar districts, he said.

The four districts jointly house over 378,000 cultivable hectares and 556,887 reported hectares (suitable for cultivation), according to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Development Statistics-2010.

“An alternate housing would be provided to some 118 families that will be displaced due to the project’s execution,” said the official.

Officials of the irrigation and planning and development departments said that the flood mitigation component of the project was vital for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s agro economy in view of flood risks to its agriculture-rich  Peshawar, Charsadda and Nowshera districts where standing crops, private housing and government facilities were left in ruin after the 2010 floods.

“We made the Water and Power Development Authority to raise the height of the dam to take the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s interest into account as flood mitigation is equally important side by side generating electricity,” said an irrigation department official. He said that the Wapda had designed the project for hydropower generation.  Later, it agreed to accommodate Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s stand, making the Munda Dam project a multi-purpose initiative.

Involving a 213-meter high and 760-meter lengthy ‘concrete faced rock fill dam,’ the project will be completed in nine years, including seven years construction period and two years for preparing detailed engineering designs, for which the Wapda has hired private consultants.

To be built on Swat River, five kilometers upstream of Munda headwork in Mohmand Agency, the dam will create a reservoir, spanning 15,400 acres, good for storing 1.29 million acre feet water. The irrigation department official said that low feeding tunnel would be built to supply water lower Swat canal that irrigated several union councils in Mardan, Swabi, and Nowshera districts.

When contacted, official planners and public representatives said the project should be executed without further delay and completed within the timeline.

“We welcome the beginning of work on its engineering designs,” said Senator Haji Adeel, a senior Awami National Party leader. He said the province needed projects to thwart flood dangers in future.

A senior irrigation department official said that the effects of the 2010 floods could have been minimised in case there had been Munda dam.

The execution of the project, according to officials, has been started after a delay of several years. First, feasibility study on it was completed in March 2000. Later, in view of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s reservations, a review of the feasibility was conducted that was, upon completion, submitted to the Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB) in 2006.

The province, said the development planner, was suffering from scarcity of water as due to lack of storage projects and an inadequate irrigation network it had not been able to utilise full share of its water allocated under the water accord of 1991.

“The federal government should make sure the project is executed without any hindrance and Mohmand tribesmen’s demand for renaming should be handled intelligently to avoid any complications,” said the official.

The issue of renaming the ‘Munda Dam’ to ‘Mohmand Dam’ was also raised last week at Governor House, Peshawar, where the Wapda and private consultants entered into an agreement for the engineering designs. A delegation of Mohmand tribesmen, said the development planner, took up the dam’s renaming issue with Governor Masood Kausar.

“Whatever name they call it, we (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government) don’t have an issue with it, but we don’t want it to become an issue that compromises our interest,” said the official.

The province, he added, needed to beef up flood mitigation by adding new water storages and water channels to its inadequate irrigation network.