The new Islamabad International Airport (IIAP) Project is unlikely to be completed by August 2017 as planned, since the construction on the rainwater harvesting Kasana dam project will take another one-and-half years.
However, the IIAP will be ready for operations by late July and the facility will then be inaugurated by the prime minister on August 14.In order to cater to the water needs of IIAP, Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) has already constructed Ramma Dam, with a capacity of 3.3 Million Gallons per day (MGD).
It is important to mention here that the project is already five years behind schedule. The airport project was approved in 2003-04 while groundbreaking was performed in April 2007.
The PCAA believed that keeping in-view domestic water requirements, the initial requirement of water stands at 2 MGD for the terminal building which goes up to 7.5 MGD as an ultimate requirement; catering for the passengers as well as commercial and residential developments.
The approximate cost of construction of Rainwater Harvesting Kasana Dam at IIAP project is Rs1 billion. According to PCAA, the project implementation period is 406 days and the consultant would be responsible for the design review / issuance of construction drawings, detailed construction supervision, completion of “As-built drawings” and handing/taking-over process.
Meanwhile, with the aim to develop a sustainable water resource to cater water requirements for different purposes, the PCAA has invited an Expression of Interest (EoI) from reputed consulting firms to provide consultancy services for the design review and construction supervision of Kasana dam at IIAP.
The dam site is located on the tributary Nandna Kas, which is from the Haro River and ultimately falls into Indus River near Ghazi Bharotha. It is near Kasana village, Tehsil Fateh Jang, District Attock, and approachable through a village road. It is about 10 km from Qutbal.
PCAA is currently undertaking the construction of IIAP while the airport will be the first Greenfield airport of Pakistan. With state of the art facilities, it will be able to handle initially 6.5 million passengers traffic annually, which can be increased to the ultimate capacity of handling 25 million passengers per annum.
As there are no other water resources available in the Potohar plateau to cater for high water IIAP project, the rainfall intensity in Potohar region is higher than the southern part of the country and resulted runoff is wasted in the rivers. To meet drinking water requirements, the construction of small dams is the only alternative available for the under-construction project, PCAA explained.
Kasana Dam has a catchment area of 21.9 sq. km and a reservoir area of approximately 1.5 sq-km. The normal conservation water level in reservoir is estimated to be 158i ft and dead storage level as 1548 ft above MSL. The length of conductance main from the raw water intake downstream of the dam to the existing collecting sump at Ramma dam site is about 23400 ft.
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