KALABAGH DAM, A MATTER OF SURVIVAL FOR PAKISTAN

KALABAGH DAM, A MATTER OF SURVIVAL FOR PAKISTAN
by Asad Omar Cheema on Sunday, 15 August 2010 at 04:54

The country on our INDEPENDENCE DAY lay in ruins because of flooding ONLY because of poor planning. Had our leaders understood the real need and importance of KALABAGH Dam the poor people of our country would not have been suffering like this. It is always good planning which makes life easier or difficult. All politically ambiguos cofusions and fears of those against the building of the dam can be sorted out thru parliamentary debates if the correct vision and understanding is kept in mind of the colossal harm our nation goes thru when flooding like we are going thru occurs. The country has slid back at least five years and we are begging the world for help for our own mistakes.

The Prime Minister should initiate the process of developing a national consensus on the construction of Kalabagh Dam as soon as possible and satisfy the provinces of their reservations through discussions/debates in the Parliament so that those generally hostile to the dam should also be satisfied and come to know how important it is for the national economy to start work on the dam and how any further delay in its construction would be an invitation to disaster for the country in the near future.

The perils of depleting water reservoirs and the need for construction of not only Kalabagh Dam but many other dams to meet the future water requirements of the country should be undertaken specially of the Sindh Province. Our existing dams are depleting and we have a water short fall of over 15 million acre feet which is equal to water stored in Mangla Dam and this shortage will continue to increase with every passing year and the biggest sufferer will be the province of Sindh. The depleting capacity of the existing water reservoirs call for at least one dam like Kalabagh, Bhasha or Bunji every 10 years. We have been neglecting this dire requirement and did not construct any new dam during the last 30 years and the country is today suffering for this criminal neglect in the form of floods, drought and acute water shortage throughout the country specially in Sindh and Balochistan. Punjab has plenty of sweet sub soil water and in case of shortage it can meet its requirement by sinking more tubwells. But Sindh has brackish sub soil water which cannot be used for irrigation purposes. The water shortage in Sindh thus will be much more acute in the coming years and this disaster can be averted only by undertaking construction of new dams on warfooting.

Big dams take a long time to build and that even the feasibility study for a major dam can take several years. Pakistan urgently needs to build more dams to boost the country's water-storage capacity like Turkey which has built 40 dams on the Tigris River and other rivers over the last five decades, while Pakistan, during the same period, has built only two. Mangla Dam on the River of Jhelum (completed in 1968) and Tarbela Dam on the River Indus (completed in 1974). If we take a decision right now to go ahead with the construction of a dam, it will be completed in the year 2020by which time the water shortage in the country will rise to 25 million acre-feet, and by the year 2024 or 2025 the shortage will go up to 28 million to 30 million acre-feet. It is stupidity if we keep losing our water to the sea each year while our people keep longing for it.

The feasibility study of Kalabagh Dam was prepared long ago and a lot of preliminary work has already been done on the project. Its construction can be started in few months hoping to be completed by 2019/2020. In the meanwhile work on feasibilities of Bhasha and Nunji has been undertaken and work on these two dams should be completed by 2015 and 2020 respectively. If we want to meet the water requirements of next fifty years, we will have to build all these dams besides identifying new sites.

The Kalabagh Dam has become an absolute necessity for the country and delaying or abandoning its construction would be an invitation to a disaster. The water situation has become precarious and the provinces are going to each others throat already over the issue of water supply. Pakistan is one of the unfortunate country which has not built a major dam in the last three decades. No wonder, today the country is facing a serious water crisis. Millions and millions of rupees have been spent on the feasibility report of this Dam, alterations have been made in the plan to remove the apprehensions of those who have opposed it for one reason or the other, but all these have proved futile exercises and the project has not moved an inch forward. The unnecessary politicisation of the issue has been the major hurdle. However, it would be advisable for the President and Prime Minister to allay the genuine fears, if any, of the critics of the Dam. It would be suicidal to let the Dam become victim of a political controversy. Those who are using the issue as a political ploy to do politicking are advised not to do so as it amounts to playing with the destiny of the country. The government would not find it easy to build up a consensus on the issue. They need to muster support of politicians who matter. And it would require patience, imagination, good sense and finally power of persuasion. It is good that the Chief Executive has already initiated a process of dialogue with the politicians. The governors should also become a part of it at their level. Secondly, the opponents of the project have become allergic to the name of Kalabagh Dam. There is a lot of merit in Imran Khan's suggestion to change the name of the Dam to Indus Channel. Apparently this may appear a gimmick, but surrounded by a peculiar political controversy as Kalabagh Dam is, this gimmick may deliver, as it could provide a way out to those staunch opponents who had gone too far in their opposition of Kalabagh Dam, but would accept it if given another nomenclature/name.

Kalabagh Dam is imperative for the good of the country and work on the project should begin without the fear of any adverse reactions. It would be a great achievement if the present government makes a breakthrough on this explosive issue. If they should do it, they would not only carve out a name for themselves in the history of the country, but also win the abiding gratitude of the nation.


Asad Omar Cheema