Good omen

At last the dream of clean and renewable energy has come true. Water and Power Development Authority has awarded the contract for civil and electromechanical work of Mohamand dam to a joint venture of two construction companies, Gzhouba of China and a Pakistani company Descon. The latter company is owned by Abdul Razzaq Daud, Advisor to the Prime Minister on commerce and textiles. The cost of these works is estimated at Rs.183.523 billion. The total cost of the project is Rs.309 billion. Initially its total cost was estimated 1 billion dollars in 2003 when the rate of exchange was Rs. 60 for a dollar. The delay in its launching has almost doubled its construction cost. But the saying that better late than never holds good.

The storage capacity of the reservoir of the dam is 1.290 million acre feet from which irrigation water will be provided to 15100 acres. Two canals will be taken out for two subdivisions of tribal district of Mohamand. The hydel power station of the dam will generate 800 megawatt electricity.

Next in line is Diyamer Bash dam for which the issue of arranging foreign exchange component of funding is yet to be sorted out. The major multilateral donor agency, the World Bank has made the provision of funds conditional with issuance of NOC by India on the pretext that dam site lies in the disputed territory. China’s conditions for financing of the dam under CPEC were against the national interest and the project has to be withdrawn form CPEC frame work.

Diyamer Basha dam reservoir has water storage capacity of 8.1 million acre feet with live storage capacity of 6.4 million acre feet. Power generation potential of the dam is 4500 megawatt. The estimated cost of the dam is $ 8.5 billion. The available technical details of the dam do not show any provision for taking out canals from dam’s storage. Although the government intends to launch this dam this year but no firm schedule has been announced. In the prevailing scenario Kalabagh dam project is the best option for which funding from multilateral donor agencies can be obtained if political consensus is developed. The water storage capacity of its reservoir is 6.1 million acre feet from which irrigation water can be provided to millions of acres of fertile lands of both Punjab and Khyber Pukhtunkhwa. The electricity generation capacity of the project is 3600 megawatt. As compared with Diyamer Basha dam, Kalabagh dam is a multidimensional mega project and it is time to initiate the process of building consensus for its construction.