CDA among three major defaulters of Khanpur Dam
About Rs571 million in dues are owed to Khanpur Dam by various government agencies, officials said on Thursday. Almost 99% of this amount is owed by just three: the Capital Development Authority and the irrigation departments of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, officials said.
Wapda started billing its beneficiaries in July in 1997 following a ministerial meeting that allowed it to collect bills from state institutes and departments, to recover its capital and meet maintenance and operation costs. The rates for a period of 10 years were worked out to be Rs900 per acre feet for municipal water and Rs600 per acre feet for monthly irrigation supply, which comes out to Rs7.7 million per month, a Khanpur Dam official said.
The official added that the irrigation departments of the two provinces had failed to pay “a single penny”, while CDA - the third largest beneficiary of the dam - has paid about 75% of its bills.
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa owes the dam Rs270 million, Punjab owes Rs220 million and CDA owes the dam Rs90 million. Moreover, the University of Engineering and Technology Taxila, which recently started receiving its share of 2 cusecs of water daily, owes Rs300,000 in dues to the dam. An official said one of the training wings of the army has four residential quarters and an old building of the Khanpur Dam under its use for the last several years and owes it Rs1.25 million in rent. Other beneficiaries of the dam, Facto Cement Industry, PMO and Heavy Industries Taxila are making regular payments.
The dam was commissioned in 1984 with a cost of Rs1,385 million and has a gross storage of 89,613 acre feet and live storage of 81,650 acre feet. Its left bank, which is 18 km long, can provide 440 cusecs for irrigation and municipal use. The right bank, which is 11 km long, has a capacity of 110 cusecs that is used entirely for irrigation. The dam irrigates 36,470 acres in Punjab and K-P — 18,790 acre in Haripur and 17,680 acre of Rawalpindi and Attock.
Zubair Khan, a sub-divisional officer of Irrigation Department Haripur, said the amount billed by Khanpur Dam is “thousands time higher” than the rates they charge farmers. He said that the irrigation water rates should be revised and fixed in accordance with the rates that the government charges from farmers.
Another official, working in the Attock irrigation department, said they are not getting their promised share of water, as farmers at the tail end of revenue limits in K-P have “damaged the left bank canal that carries water for Punjab”.
He said, “Khanpur Dam authorities can not force us to pay our dues as they do not ensure water supply to us.”
The dam authorities have taken up the mater with the ministry of water and power, an official said. He added that CDA has promised to pay Rs50 million by the end of December.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 2nd, 2011.
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