Daily Times

In most of the developing countries, an alarm is raised only when imminent danger is just around the corner. Advanced planning. Even if some projects are identified to meet the challenges on the ground, they are not given priority unless the danger starts looming over our heads. Pakistan is no different.

The most recent case is that now there are reports of severe water shortage by 2025. To mitigate its impact, Pakistan needs not one but several dams. The focus on Diamer-Bhasha Dam and the emphasis on the urgency to complete this project has interestingly, come from the most unlikely source — Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Saqib Nisar.

When I first wrote an article on the dam in 2011, the estimated cost of the project was $11.7 billion, which has now risen to $14.6 billion, which is over Rs1.7 trillion. Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan has also joined the CJP, appealing to the Pakistanis to contribute towards the dam fund. His appeal was directed more towards the overseas Pakistanis who have been contributing to his philanthropic projects and his party.

The critics are somewhat right when they say a dam of this magnitude cannot be built just by collecting donations. But we should keep in mind that the estimated cost was not required upfront as the gestation period for a dam of this magnitude is said to be 11 years. It would be wise for the government to lay down an annual cash flow required for the construction of this dam and provide for the power generation unit. However, the government has not been providing enough funds for the dam in its public sector development allocations, considering that the ground breaking of this project was done in 2006 by General Pervez Musharraf. This has resulted in the delay of the crucial project.

Significance of such a mega-development project cannot be over-looked in a society which is obsessed with politics. This is the biggest ever public sector project undertaken by Pakistan. The last such project was of course, Tarbela Dam which was mostly financed by the World Bank as a part of an India-Pakistan deal on Indus Water Treaty and made operational at least 42 years ago. Tarbela is the world third largest dam in terms of water reservoir volume.

The biggest challenge for the dam project managers would be relocating almost 100 kilometres of the Karakoram Highway to a higher altitude, as it would be submerged when the dam is made

Bhasha Dam, which on completion is going to be bigger than Tarbela, was approved by the Council of Common Interest (CCI) in July 2010 after failing to convince the provinces on the controversial Kalabagh Dam. Much time was wasted on the disputed Kalabagh Dam, which is still not acceptable to Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). But there is a downside here.We don’t have enough water in our rivers and there is dispute among the provinces on the distribution of water share.  Sindh has always maintained that it needs at least 10Million Acre Feet (MAF) to flow down from the delta. Presently, only 4-6MAF of water flows to the sea. The desertification of the delta villages has immerged as a serious problem to the marine life and fishermen’s villages.The problem is that there is a lack of trust between the provinces on sharing the water. Some advocates of big dams are always chanting the perfidious propaganda that the country is wasting the water which flows down to the sea. I’m amazed at the lack of knowledge regarding environmental implications.

The federation needs a new water accord, as the 1991 accord has become out dated. Some nationalist Sindhi leaders still have their reservations on building any dam on the up-streams of Indus. The one plus point to the Diamer-Bhasha project is that opposition to it is very subdued in Sindh and the environmental concerns of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa regarding Kalabagh Dam have been assuaged as the site of the dam was shifted.

On its completion in about 11 years, Bhasha Dam will add 4500 MW to the country’s present 6500 MW, of which 4347 MW hydro power electricity is contributed by the present Tarbela and Mangla dams. In a country where the new term ‘electricity riots’ originated, one frequently asked question is, why do we not harness our hydro-power resources? This has been explained by the experts many times in the media, but these explanations seem to have fallen on deaf ears. First, we have to understand that the installed 6500 MW is never available. There are a number of reasons: the installed generators at most of the big and small dams are old and cannot generate their name-plate capacity; the water storage capacity of both Tarbela and Mangla has declined by 19 percent because of sedimentation; hydro-power is seasonal as there is less water in winters its capacity to generate goes down; and that water can only be released from the dams to generate electricity if all the members of Indus River System Authority (IRSA) agree because water stored in these dams has to supplement the existing river water when Kharif and Rabi crops need to be irrigated.

The experts say that both the dams have lost over 5 MAF water storage capacities. Tarbela’s fourth extension project has also been completed. In this backdrop,the Diamer-Bhasha Dam’s construction is all the more essential for Pakistan’s agriculture as it would add a gross 8 MAF to Pakistan’s water reservoir capacity.

WAPDA’s estimate is that weighted annual average benefit from this water would be over Rs50 billion. Together with the annual savings from flood losses and gains from Rs106 billion electricity generation, the cost of the dam is expected to be recovered in six to eight years. Not a bad deal — provided the project is completed on time and with no further cost overruns. However, our public sector projects track record must also be kept in mind as well as the fact that at least three governments, including the present PTI government, might change during the gestation period of this 11-year project, if they complete their terms.

Before some of my skeptic colleagues in the media and cynical experts ask where we are going to find $14 billion, let me tackle this question. As stated above, the amount will not be required upfront — if we average it out on the 11 year construction period, it is just $1.27 billion a year. Now, this is not a big amount even if the country has to meet it through its own resources. Consider this: the government is subsidising the terminally sick public sector companies to the tune of over Rs1 trillion per annum.

When I posed the question regarding financing of this project,former WAPDA Chairman Shakil Durrani was confident that given the negotiations with various lending agencies, the money for the dam will not be a problem. “ADB is expected to lead the consortium which would be backed by Islamic Development Bank, USAID and Japan International Cooperation Agency,” he had added exuberantly on the basis of his then negotiations with them. But it seems that multi-lateral donors have backed out under the Indian pressure, which says that Gilgit-Baltistan is a part of Kashmir and hence, is a disputed area where Pakistan should not build a dam.

Social activists are usually against the building of big dams as it displaces people and inundates the neighbouring areas. As this dam is being made in the thinly populated Gilgit-Baltistan, and its outfall would be in the adjoining KP it is not displacing more thana few thousand households. But, some local leaders have been found protesting against the dam as they consider that the compensation and resettlement has not been done fairly.

But the biggest challenge for the dam project managers would be relocating almost 100 kilometres of the Karakoram Highway to a higher altitude, as it would be submerged when the dam is made.

Unlike the general impression that hydro power is being completely neglected, a visit to Gilgit-Baltistan, FATA and Chitral shows that a number of small run-of-the-river power plants are already operating successfully and meeting the demand of the local villages. One enterprising Chitral businessman is not only generating one MW but also distributing electricity to the people of Ayun valley directly. “His rates are much lower than WAPDA rates of electricity,” a local resident of Ayun told me.

WAPDA says it has various small and medium Hydro power projects in the pipeline which when completed can add 30,000 MW.Most of these projects are up North — GB, KP and Azad Kashmir. But a cursory look at these 22 projects shows that most of them are still on the drawing board.

All said and done, even an escalated cost Diamer-Bhasha dam is doable and would pay for itself in only seven to eight years.

The writer is the author of Whats wrong with Pakistan? And can be reached at ayazbabar@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, September 18^th 2018.