Unacceptability of the Dam
Lt Col (R) Raees Khan Afridi
Back in
1987, when I was serving as a Major in
Pakistan army, a hot issue took over the nation: "Should
Kalabagh dam be constructed or not?" Being a student of Geography and a curios
to know about the proposed Dam, I decided to see the site myself and discuss the
geographical problems as well as the economic expenditure with the consultants.
The site is 5/6 kilometres (north) upstream from Kalabagh, but it is downstream
from the junction where river Sawan from Talagang and river Tui from Kohat joins
river Indus.
I raised the following queries in connection with the Dam
when I met the Pakistani consultant who was working with the foreign consultant
company:-
a. Is there
any left bank canal which will irrigate the Barani areas of Tehsil Pindi Gheb,
Tehsil Talagang and Tehsil Chakwal?
b. Is there any right bank canal which will irrigate the
Barani areas of district Kohat, Karak and Bannu?
The consultant said that there was no such arrangement for
the irrigation of Barani lands. On further investigation, the consultant
informed me that all the three links roads ie the Attock-Talagang road on river
Sawan, the Kohat-Rawalpindi road on river Indus and the Peshawar-Rawalpindi road
on river Indus will be threatened by the Kalabagh dam. All these bridges will
have to be reconstructed, for which a colossal amount of money will be required.
The Sui gas line between Peshawar-Rawalpindi and
Rawalpindi-Kohat will also sink in the dam and the fertile lands of Mardan-Swabi
and Nowshera known for yielding good tobacco, sugarcane and maize will become
water-logging due to higher under-ground water table. These crops earn a lot of
foreign exchange for the country and if the land is water-logged, we can no more
expect good crops, let alone revenue from them.
Moreover the
fertile land (Dhoda and Kharmatoo) of district Kohat will also be water-logged.
These areas provide fruit and vegetables not only to the Kohat division but also
to
Rawalpindi and Islamabad.
The
inhabitants of the low lying ares on both sides of rivers Sindh, Sawan,
Kabul and Tui
will have to be shifted and given new houses and lands for settlement. These
inhabitants are in lakhs and this will incur a heavy expenditure.
The main aim of the Dam as described by the consultant was:
- To produce
more electricity.
- To act as a water reservoir.
Another
negative point is that all the expenditure will be made in foreign currency
where as it will be recovered in Pakistani rupees. This way,
Pakistan will have to spend a large sum of foreign exchange
with compound interest.
If the aim
of the Kalabagh dam is to produce electricity and to store water, then it can be
achieved by constructing small dams on river Sindh at Ghazi Barotha and Bhasha
near Tarbela dam. In this way the main transmission line from Tarbela will be
readily available for Bhasha and Ghazi Barotha, and money will be saved. At
Ghazi Barotha and Bhasha, all three main bridges and roads links,
Peshawar, Kohat and Talagang with
Rawalpindi, need not be reconstructed saving an otherwise unnecessary
expenditure. The Sui gas lines and the fertile lands of Mardan, Swabi and
Nowshera as well as Kohat will be saved.
Above all, the three small provinces are deadly against this
dam, where as there is no opposition to the construction of Bhasha dam and Ghazi
Barotha dam.
We must
maintain our national unity at all cost and must not forget the
Dhaka debacle. We must respect the
public opinion as well as save the scarce foreign exchange and realise the
objective "self sufficiency through electricity" by not constructing the
Kalabagh but Ghazi Barotha and Bhasha dams.