Centre financing 32 dam projects, NA told

Minister for Water Resources Musadik Malik informed the National Assembly on Friday that the federal government is financing the construction of 32 dam projects across Pakistan, with a total cost of Rs1,056.986 billion.
“Various small, medium, and large dams/reservoirs are being made through the Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) to store surplus water, which becomes available during the flood season,” Malik said while responding to a question during the National Assembly’s question hour.
He said this stored water will be used for irrigation and drinking, when the natural flow in rivers decreases. “Once completed, these projects will store approximately 8.43 million acre-feet of water and irrigate an additional 436,934 acres of land.”
Malik told the house that the water stored in the Diamer Bhasha Dam alone will be used to supplement irrigation for 45 million acres of land in the Indus Basin Irrigation System.
“The 6.4 million acre-feet of water stored in the Diamer Bhasha Dam will be used to augment irrigation supplies currently provided to canal-irrigated land within the basin.”
He further revealed plans for several additional projects, currently in the planning stages, including the Shyok Dam (5.0 MAF), Akhori Dam (6.0 MAF), Chiniot Dam (0.9 MAF), and Murum Dam (0.45 MAF).
To another question, he said steps taken to monitor and regulate groundwater, including relevant legislation and implementation, fall under the jurisdiction of the respective provinces after the 18th Amendment.
He referred to the National Water Policy (NWP) of 2018, which outlines an overall framework for addressing the emerging water crisis and provides guidelines for sustainable water management.
He said while water is a national resource but irrigation, agriculture, rural and urban water supply and other related sectors are provincial responsibilities. “The NWP 2018 offers comprehensive guidelines, emphasizing the importance of groundwater as a critical resource,” he said.
He said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) province implemented the K-P Water Act in 2020 while the K-P Irrigation Department has initiated the establishment of a division to monitor groundwater.
Malik said legislation concerning groundwater has been initiated in Sindh and approval of the groundwater regulatory framework will be granted by the end of 2025.