Govt eyeing construction of 10 dams in 10 years

By News Desk

TARBELA: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday said the government has decided to construct 10 dams within the next 10 years, an ambitious target he said would help avert the looming water scarcity in the country as well as protect the future generations.

A World Bank report released in 2019 states that while Pakistan is well-endowed with water, water availability per person is comparatively low. Water wastage is high and agricultural yields are low compared to most countries.

“We have decided to build 10 dams within 10 years, including Dasu and [Diamer-] Bhasha dams. We may face water shortages in the future and will be unable to cope with the needs of the people and farmers unless we have storage,” the Prime Minister said after he broke ground on the Tarbela-5 (T5) expansion project.

With the financial assistance of World Bank and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the project will be completed within three years and cost $807 million.

The project is aimed at protecting the Tarbela Dam against silting besides helping generate 1,530MW of electricity, providing 1.34 billion units of power to the national grid. The construction of the Tarbela-5 expansion project will also create 3,000 jobs and enhance the power production capacity of the Tarbela Hydropower Project from 4,888 MW to 6,418MW.

It will also play an important role to cope with the country’s needs of water, food and energy. Under the project, the water supply for irrigation purposes would also continue. The Prime Minister, who earlier unveiled its plaque, said the project’s objective was to achieve clean energy and make Pakistan contribute to the fight against global warming. Prime Minister Khan said the world’s climate was getting hot very fast, making the world face issues like forest fires as had been witnessed in the US, Turkey, Greece and other countries. Moreover, unprecedented floods and extremely hot weathers like in Jacobabad were also the consequences of global warming.

The Prime Minister said the generation of clean energy would help mitigate the effects of global warming. He resolved to make Pakistan a country with a major chunk of energy coming from clean sources like hydro, solar or wind instead of fossil fuels.

Besides providing clean energy, the Tarbela-5 project will also protect the dam against silting, he added. Moreover, the construction of Dasu and Diamer-Bhasha dams would also help in slowing down the silting.

Khan said unfortunately, previous governments had not constructed water reservoirs either due to lack of long-term planning or because they just focused their five-year terms.

He told the gathering that the construction of the Bhasha Dam was decided in 1984 but was not built owing to the lack of long-term planning. The Prime Minister said the previous governments had signed exorbitant contracts making the country to pay whether or not electricity was consumed.

“This way, the consumers including the industry had to bear the cost. Owing to costly electricity, the the industry could not compete with the world market until the government paid a subsidy,” he lamented.

He said China was making progress just because of long-term planning. He hoped the construction of Mohmand Dam would complete by 2025 and Bhasha Dam in 2028 which would ensure the protection of the future generations.