‘Rulers facilitators of Indian water terrorism’

LAHORE

Pakistan Muslim League-Q central leader Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi has alleged that the rulers are facilitators of Indian “water-terrorism” in Pakistan and have never shown any intent regarding building the Kalabagh Dam because their “friends” in India are against it.

Addressing a press conference at his residence, he said India has laid down the entire plan of choking Pakistan through “water-terrorism” by building dams on Chenab, Indus and Jhelum, yet there has never been a strong statement by the rulers. The PML-N government needs to stop wasting time on power projects and build Kalabagh Dam because it is the backbone of economy and the national lifeline.

He said the entire country is in a state of hue and cry because of massive outages while the rulers are busy in making “commissions” instead of electricity. He said nowhere in the world is electricity as expensive as it is in Pakistan, considering the resources available.

He pointed out that in the past five years, the country has had to deal with floods every year which amounted to Rs30 billion in losses. The current cost of building Kalabagh Dam stands at Rs9 billion, he said. Also, unlike 12 years for Bhasha and 18 for Dasu, Kalabagh Dam is going to take only six years to build, he added. He stated that after India is done building the thre dams over Chenab, Jhelum and Indus, Pakistan’s water supply will be reduced to half and the situation will plunge the country into most severe crisis.

Pervaiz Elahi said the PML-N leaders are only concerned about staying in power for which they have compromised everything, including the country’s future. That is one of the reasons that PML-N does not even talk about the Kalabagh Dam, despite being in government for the past nine years in Punjab and four in federal.

He said the PML-Q is ready to work with the government in building a national consensus over Kalabagh Dam and the entire country should unite on this one-point agenda to get this done on emergent basis. He said this dam should be named ‘Pakistan Dam’ because that’s what it is in essence - the lifeline of Pakistani power sustainability and agricultural growth.

Answering a question regarding why did PML-Q not build the dam during their tenure, he said he even offered to surrender the share-by-population formula which benefited Punjab but the chief ministers of other provinces did not agree although they didn’t have any grounds for objecting anymore.

He alleged that India is heavily funding anti-Kalabagh Dam propaganda in Pakistan, despite the fact that researchers and engineers have repeatedly shown that all such propaganda is false.

Pervaiz Elahi said that after Kalabagh Dam is built, he will provide free-of-cost electricity to farmers and if he fails to do so he will quit politics.