Why Not Kalabagh Dam?
Blog Saturday, May 15th, 2010The minister for water and power has said that the government cannot build Kalabagh dam. He did not say why. A minister must never talk in thin air, he must have cogent reasons for what he says.
Does he think that Punjab will take more water from Kalabagh dam because the dam is located in Punjab? Does Azad Jammu and Kashmir take more water from Mangla dam? Does Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa take more power from Tarbela dam? Is not the distribution of river water and power centralised? Does he think that the flow in the Indus will decrease because of Kalabagh dam? Did flow in Jhelum decrease because of Mangla dam (which gave Pakistan back the waters lost to India)? Did flow in the Indus decrease because of Tarbela dam (which increased all canal supplies by 25 per cent)?
Wasn’t Sindh’s share in all future dams increased by reducing Punjab’s share? Won’t Kalabagh dam give Sindh 37 per cent or 2.2 million-acre-feet of water additional to what it is getting now? A quantity which Sindh has no other means of getting from anywhere. If none of the above reasons, then the PPP government must be bound to follow the vision of its leader, Benazir Bhutto, who thought that the IPPs were the solution to our power problems for all times to come.
By Khursheed Anwar
Short URL: http://www.daily.pk/?p=17533
on May 15 2010. Filed under
1.
– Three out of four Provincial Assemblies have passed about 10 resolutions against construction of Kalabagh dam (KBD) in Punjab.
– Punjab is giving impression that three out of four provinces viz. Sindh, Balochistan and KP by opposing Kalabagh dam in Punjab, are real enemies of Pakistan is totally wrong and unacceptable. At the same time, Punjab giving impression that only Punjab is well-wisher of three provinces and people of three provinces are enemies of their own, is wrong. This thinking must be abandoned immediately as we have not learnt lesson from separation of East Pakistan (56% population)
In the past, Punjab compelled “majority” (56% population) to get independence from “minority”. The only example in the sovereign states in the world.
Now a gang of people belonging to Punjab are bent upon to prove the people of three provinces out of four are “Traitors”. What a shame.
Bhasha dam is already under construction whereas Munda dam with double capacity of KBD is also to start construction work soon.
Therefore, there is no need to build KBD as it would only control and reduce the water of Sindh.
In Sindh, sixth largest Indus delta in the world is on verge of unnatural death due to non-implementation of water Accord – 1991 by Punjab after passing 19 years of signing it and Punjab not allowing to release 10 MAF water downstream Kotri to save Indus delta and people 2.7 million living in areas between Kotri and Arabian Sea. They are Pakistani and Muslims. What happened if they are not Punjabis?
Flood water is not stored in dams. Plz see interview of Fatehullah Gandapur, ex-IRSA chairman (1993-1998) to daily Times (Aug 12, 2010) while denying the claim of PM Gillani (belonging to Punjab) that KBD was not designed as flood control project.
– Why super floods are creating havoc in USA, Europe and Asia despite having dams? Please think again and again
As per editorial of an English daily (Sept 25, 2010) entitled “Chinese help”, 110 million people in China are recently affected by devastating flood and land slides (despite having dams there).
PM Gilani has already said: “Had Kalabagh dam in place, devastating flood could have been averted.” (despite one spate of flood was 100 MAF versus proposed Kalabagh dam’s capacity which was only 6.1 MAF).
In order to avert devastation of Chinese flood further, only one option is left that Prime Minister Gilani may convince China to build Kalabagh dam in Punjab as it may avert floods devastation in China!!