By the time it is ready to store water, the Mangla and Tarbela dams will have lost their capacity to store water.
LAHORE: The Kalabagh Dam will not need any water additional to what already is in the system. By the time it is ready to store water, the Mangla and Tarbela dams will have lost their capacity to store water, which will be equal to the capacity of the Kalabahgh Dam, designed to store surplus floodwater without impinging on the normal flow of the Indus. Punjab and Sindh will get equal shares from it despite the vast difference in their population and area under cultivation. Without the left bank canal at Kalabagh Dam, north Punjab will not get any water from any existing or future dams built on the Indus. Two-thirds of north Punjab will revert from being irrigated to barani with a 50 per cent loss in national food production.
Without the right bank canal at the Kalabagh Dam, 800,000 acres in Dera Ismail Khan will not get water through gravity flow. Water pumped from the Chashma barrage will cost Rs5,000 per acre per year and will irrigate less than 300,000 acres. Sindh will get all the advantages of water and power without the loss of even one acre of land or the displacement of even one person.
Engr Khurshid Anwer
Published in The Express Tribune, July 27th, 2012.
