Kalabagh and the floods

KARACHI: Can someone help me and the millions of displaced affectees answer these queries? The unprecedented destruction upstream of Kalabagh could have been lessened if smaller, more effective, dams had been built on the known rainfall and irrigation tracts in the mountain areas. However, that is presently a separate issue.

Without being terribly technical about mechanistic details, it would be fair to say that much of Pakistan, downstream of the proposed Kalabagh area, would not have suffered the massive onslaughts they have, currently are and will face, for at least another ten days or so. That erosion of fertile lands and damage to standing crops would not have been catastrophic. That we would not have been the 'ultimate' UN statistic of 13.8 million victims. That siltage, a major issue with flat river levels and dam lifespan would not have been accelerated. That, probably for the next few seasons, we would have had more than enough water stored in this and the other catchments that have now eroded or had to be broken into to reduce pressure on the lower dams. That it would have substantially contributed to electricity generation in this power starved country.

For 50 years this potential multipurpose project, which might have helped transform Pakistan, has been made a political yoyo by our politicians of all colours.

Today we are at the receiving end of nature's raw fury.  So, when our beloved prime minister said in Multan "that the deaths and destruction in the floods could have been averted if the Kalabagh Dam had been built," is that the inane answer that millions of Pakistanis who now have nothing further to live for, and those few of us sane ones who are still blessed, want to hear?

If we can apportion responsibility within the present generation of politicians then we must look at the punishments they need to be awarded. So that future generations of politicians will think hard before they permit Pakistan to flow down the collective effluent of its raging rivers. Perhaps our Supreme Court will suo motu rise to yet one more occasion.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 11^th, 2010.