Differing Points of View on Kalabagh Dam
Punjab
Kalabagh dam is extremely advantageous for Punjab even if it is equally harmful for the other riparian provinces. The point of view of Punjab therefore, shared enthusiastically by WAPDA, officially declared and unofficially felt, is:
i. Kalabagh Dam will generate 3600 MW of cheap hydroelectricity when the country is short of energy. Since the hydel power generation will be situated in the geographical boundaries of Punjab, the royalty of hydel power will also go to the province. The substantial industrial activity in Punjab will get a tremendous boost with the availability of less expensive power.
ii. The quantity of water stored in the Tarbela and Mangla dam reservoirs is gradually decreasing due to sedimentation. Therefore and additional storage dam is urgently needed. Other wise the advantage of “Green revolution” would not be sustainable.
iii. The third dam on Indus River System will substantially increase the total quantity of stored water, so that additional and timely releases for irrigation purposes will be made, increasing food grain production.
iv. KBD will help reduce, or avert, the effects of floods by absorbing and storing the peak flood flows.
Water from Kalabagh Dam will be used for irrigation through two canals tapped from the right bank and left bank outlet works as follows:
a. The left bank canal will be 170 miles (272 Km) long and will have a capacity of 15,000 cusecs. It will lift about 6.65 MAF water annually from the dam, to irrigate 380,000 acres (145,000 ha) falling on both of its sides as it passes through Mianwali, Khushab and Jehlum districts. The Rabi and Kharif requirements for the cultivation is expected to be 0.78 MAF and 1.23 MAF respectively. The remaining 4.65 MAF water is proposed to be drained into Jehlum at Rasul Barrage to meet the shortage of Mangla command.
(Source : Salient Features of KBD: Revised June 1989, by WAPDA)
b. The Right Bank canal is to be 98 miles (157 Km) long and will draw another 15,000 cusecs from the KBD to irrigate 2.12 million acres lifting 6.21 MAF per year. The canal is to be so constructed that it will irrigate 651,300 acres of Dera Ismail Khan beyond CRB canal command. Another 732,500 acres are proposed to be irrigated by lifting the water 50 to 260 feet. Yet another 733,700 acres are proposed to be irrigated in Kurran Basin by lifting water to an incredulous 700 feet!!.
(Source : Salient Featues of KBD : Revised June 1989)
v. Punjab considers all water flowing into sea a total “waste”.
NWFP
The North West Frontier Province has vehemently opposed Kalabagh dam through its provincial Assembly that has passed resolution four times rejecting Kalabagh dam.
The reason Frontier opposes Kalabagh Dam is that there is not a single direct advantage accruing to the province. It only gets pain. For example:
i. By constructing a dam on Indus at Kalabagh, the Attock gorge is expected to be made a reservoir that will store 7.9 MAF gross of water (6.1 MAF live). The dam wall will be 260 feet high from the river bed that will raise the water level of Indus throughout Attock gorge, right through Haro river confluence and up the Akohra on Kabul river. Nowshera, a city of 180,000 people falls on both the left and right banks of Kabul river and down town Nowshera city will stand 24 feet below the river dykes. In case the protective dykes break, Nowshera city will meet a painful death. In any case in about 50 years time Nowshera city and adjoining areas will become waterlogged swamplands.
ii. The reservoir will inundate about 35,000 acres of irrigated land (4,500 acres in NWFP and 31,500 acres in Punjab)
iii. 34,500 people will be displaced from immediate vicinity of the dam (another 48,500 In Punjab) and are proposed to be rehabilitated. But many more who are not displaced but are dependent upon the river or the grazing lands for their livelihood, like herdsmen and boatmen, will face economic hardship and consequential migration. The fate of about 3000 affected people of Tarbela Dam must have hardened NWFP govt.’s stand Displaced in 1970, about 100,000 people living in Terbela reservoir area were provided alternate land in Guddu Barrage command. For these affected people the drastic change in environ, inhospitable weather and the hostile local population was too much to cope with. Majority of them sold their lands and moved back turning into rootless paupers that had lost everything. But there are about 3,000 cases that have yet to be finalized even after 20 years of the commissioning of Tarbela Dam.
iv. 50 km Attock – Naushera Road will be submerged by Kalabagh reservoir and will have to be relocated and built. Six rail and road bridges will also need to be relocated and rebuilt, costing enormous amount of money, that surprisingly, has not been included in the expenditure of Kalabagh dam.
Mardan Salinity Control and Rehabilitation Project (SCARP) will be severly affected due to SCARP drainage level being lower than the upper of the KBD reservoir.
Article 161 (2) of the constitution of Pakistan, 1973, says that the province in which the hydroelectric project is situated will get “net profit” of the power generated. In the case of Kalabagh Dam, the reservoir area is situated in NWFP, whereas power station is located in Punjab. Therefore the profit of power generated will go to Punjab while NWFP will only get problems and pain.
3. Balochistan
The largest province of Pakistan, Balochistan (Area: 347,190 sq. Kms. Out of Pakistan’s 796,095 sq Kms) does not touch River Indus and isnot a riparian in the strictest sense. Still the Pat feeder from Guddu Barage with 3,400 cusecs irrigates about 300,000 acres in the province and a recent request of Balochistan to remodel Pat feeder will increase the flow to 6,000 cusecs irrigating a further 200,000 acres.
Balochistan’s opposition to KBD is therefore based on its apprehension that future requests for more water from Indus will meet little success if Kalabagh project over stretches demand if water in Indus River System.
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