We must not forget that in five years’ time, Thar will not be the only place suffering from drought.
LAHORE: Given the dire situation in Thar, building a canal for the area should not be a problem. The real problem is to find water for any such canal. The total water available for irrigation in the country is barely sufficient to meet the needs for growing Kharif and Rabi crops. What we urgently need is more water and that can only be provided by a dam. The irrigation supplies that increased to 104 million acre feet when the Tarbela Dam was commissioned, have remained static for 38 years, while the population has increased from 80 million people to 190 million people over this period, and is still increasing.
The next increase in supplies will not be for another 10 to 12 years, if and when the Bhasha Dam is completed. Why do the people of Thar have to wait this long, when they can get the same amount of water in four to five years’ time? We must not forget that in five years’ time, according to official forecasts, Thar will not be the only place suffering from drought. I wonder if people who are opposed to the building of the Kalabagh Dam will still be going around saying proudly, “Look, we stopped the Kalabagh Dam from being built”?
Engr Khurshid Anwer
Published in The Express Tribune, March 26th, 2014.
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