WAPDA to divert Swat River at Mohmand Dam Project in April

Chairman Sajjad Ghani directs for deployment of additional resources to expedite work

PESHAWAR:

The Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) is going to divert Swat river at the under-construction Mohmand Dam in April this year, as the diversion system of the project is steadily heading towards completion in accordance with the timelines.

Wapda Chairman Engr Lt-Gen (retd) Sajjad Ghani on Tuesday visited the Mohmand Dam, being constructed over Swat river in Mohmand district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and inspected the spillway, diversion tunnels and the power house at the construction sites.

At present, construction work is continuing on 12 sites, the authority said in a press release. The chairman also presided over a progress review meeting at the project office and received a briefing on diversion scheme, concreting and slope stabilisation at the spillway, slope excavation.

The meeting was also briefed on the support works at the power house, excavation at the irrigation tunnels, construction of structures across the irrigation canals and finishing works at the permanent access roads located on both right and left banks of the river.

Read more: Mohmand dam’s diversion tunnels advance

The meeting was informed that the offices and the employees had been permanently shifted to the newly-constructed facilities in the project area, while a few completed buildings would also be taken over for the remaining staff.

Emphasising the need for timely completion of dam, the Wapda chairman directed for directed for deployment of additional resources to expedite the activities relating to quarry development for the dam, the press release said.

Mohmand Dam, scheduled to complete in 2026, is a multipurpose project, which will store water for agriculture, control floods, supply water to Peshawar for urban use and generate green, clean and economically affordable hydel electricity.

The project will store 1.29 million acre feet of water to irrigate 18,237 acres of new land in Mohmand and Charsadda and supplement irrigation supplies to 160,000 acres of existing land. It has an installed power capacity of 800 megawatts with annual electricity generation of 2.86 billion units.