Kala Bagh dam: Recommendations sent to Centre, states CCI

Around Rs1.2 per unit is to be the cost of generating electricity from the Kalabagh Dam.

LAHORE:

The Council of Common Interests (CCI) on Wednesday informed the Lahore High Court that it had no objection to the construction of Kala Bagh Dam (KBD) and it had already sent its recommendations to the federal government.

A written reply submitted on behalf of the Council further said that work on the project could start once the government issued directions to this effect.

The reply was submitted in response to a petition pending in the court seeking direction for the government to convene a meeting of the CCI to build consensusand exercise supervision and control of the KBD project. After going through the record, Justice Umar Ata Bandial sought replies from the federal and provincial governments by June 11.

Advocate Syed Feroze Shah Gillani has filed the petition saying that former caretaker chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and former Wapda chariman Shamsul Mulk had said on October 9, 2010 that KBD was a matter of the country’s survival.

The petitioner said KP had suffered the most because of delay in the construction as even after completion of the Basha Dam the province would not get any additional water.

He said if the KBD was built, irrigation water would become available for vast tracts of land in the KP.He said the purpose of Council of Common Interests was to iron out differences between the provinces and the provinces and the federation.

He said direction be issued to the government that CCI be convened in accordance with law to decide and control the KBD project.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 31^st, 2012.