North Punjab will not get any water from the Bhasha Dam or from any other dam on the Indus.
LAHORE: The ministry of water and power has stated that the Bhasha Dam will meet the growing power and irrigation needs of the country but does not say how much these needs will have grown in the 15 years that it will take to build the dam. As far as flood control is concerned, it will not trap the floodwaters of the Kabul, Chitral, Swat, Haro and Soan rivers, and being outside the monsoon range, it will not trap any part of the 30maf that is there to be utilised annually during the monsoon season. Also, north Punjab will not get any water from the Bhasha Dam or from any other dam on the Indus, resulting in a 50 per cent loss in national food production.
It is true that the government has been forced to go for the Bhasha Dam because of the mindless opposition to the Kalabagh Dam, but the people must be given the correct picture to prepare them for the inevitable food inflation and poverty, and other hardships they will have to face in a water-starved country.
Engr Khurshid Anwer
Published in The Express Tribune, November 5th, 2013.
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