LAHORE: Delay in construction of Kalabagh Dam has cost over Rs 132 billion per year, said former Wapda chairman Shamsul Mulk.
He said this while addressing a seminar organised by Pakistan Engineering Congress. “For twenty years, the search for acceptable alternatives has been pursued, and this search has led Pakistan to a gloomy darkness of electricity loadshedding, closure of factories, damages by floods, and relentless disputes between the provinces on sharing of Indus Rivers Water,” he sadi.
It appears that the rulers wanted electricity shortages so that the worst alternative (generation by furnace oil, costing these days Rs 16.50 per unit compared to Rs 1.02 per unit that would be the cost of power, generated from Kalabagh Dam) could be implemented for obvious reasons.
Shamsul Mulk said people of Punjab, Sindh, KP and Balochistan are paying Rs 68 billion, Rs 40 billion, Rs 18 billion and Rs 6 billion respectively due to non-construction of the dam for almost 17 years. He said that even now KBD is the cheapest hydel project and one that could be completed in a much shorter period like 6 to 7 years compared to Bhasha of 12 to 15 years.
He said that for the last forty years after Tarbela Pakistan did not build any large reservoir, with the result that we had weak defence against floods of July/August, 2010; and so the floods had their heyday.
