Daily Times

The Federal Government is financing the construction of various small, medium, and large dams/reservoirs in the country through the Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) to address growing water scarcity and drought.

Scores of such projects have been planned to store surplus water which becomes available during the flood season and to provide the same for irrigation and drinking purposes when the natural flow of water in rivers gets reduced, official sources told APP here Thursday.

Sharing details, they said that the Federal Government is sponsoring construction of 32 dam projects, costing Rs. 1,056.985.586 million during the current fiscal year. Once completed, these projects would store about 8,429,288 acre-feet of water, they added.

They said the new areas which would come under irrigation after completion of the said 32 dams would be 436,934 acres whereas the 6.4 million acre-ft water stored in Diamer Basha Dam would be utilized to augment irrigation supplies presently being made to the existing 45 million acres of the canal- irrigated land in the Indus Basin Irrigation System.

In addition to the said projects, cognizant of the water scarcity and climate change situation, several projects are under planning stages, mainly including Shyok Darn (5.0 MAF), Akhori Dam Project (6.0 MAF), Chiniot Dam Project (0.9 MAF) and Murunj Dam Project (0.45 MAF) to enhance water storage.