Serious structural flaws, substandard construction quality and poor planning of small dams have resulted in nearly Rs3 billion being wasted, as 20 dams made in Punjab have failed to produce required results.
Small Dams Organisation (SDO) of the Irrigation and Power Department constructed 20 dams during the year 2000 and 2010 to irrigate more than 27,000 acres of land. However, only around 2,000 acres of land could be irrigated, according to an inspection report prepared by the Punjab Irrigation and Water & Power Department.
The report, available with The Express Tribune, presents startling revelations of construction flaws.
Nine out of 20 dams including Jalwal Dam, Thatti Syedan Dam, Jabba Dam, Dharabi Dam, Ughan Dam, Fatehpur Dam, Phalina Dam, Shah Habib Dam and Gurha Uttam Singh Dam, have not been of use at all.
Talikna Dam in Islamabad was made to irrigate 1,000 acres, but is only able to irrigate 94 acres of land. Similarly, construction of Domeli Dam in Jhelum was completed in August 2008 to irrigate 3,000 acres of land, but it only covers 164 acres.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 17th, 2011.
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Another laurel in the name of good governance in the crown of the mughal-i-azam of Raiwind.
Nice article -- would be better if the journalist disclosed the names of the contractors and perhaps did some investigative work to determine how they were selected and who actually owns and controls the contractors. . Corrupt/incompetent contractors should be identified and put on a "black list" so that they are excluded from important govt sponsored projects in the future.
I thought that in Mush's era everything was perfect? Also according to Sharifs the corruption in Punjab (over 60% of Pakistan) is eliminated. This news must be wrong, call me naive!
This means that the concept was sound but implementation faulty, corrupt and incompetent. It is predicted that no one will be held accountable and the merry-go-round will shamelessly continue. No one's surprised.