The construction of Bhasha dam, of which the second ground breaking was announced by the government recently, is of yet awaiting the commitment of funds by the Asian Development Bank as reported in a section of the national press. It is stated that ADB has done only some preliminary document examination of the project and has suggested some changes in the land acquisition documents. As such it appears public would have to suck at the lollypop of Bhasha dam for a couple of years more before funding is committed by the ADB.
On the other hand, Kalabagh dam is ready for the word go. The scribe had written to the president of the World Bank some years ago about assisting in the building of Kalabagh dam. The World Bank had written that they agreed with the usefulness of the dam for which millions of US dollars had been provided for feasibility of the project but a green signal was awaited from the government about the consensus on the dam while the problem of the resettlement of ousted people from the dam site had to be resolved as was the case is all mega dams.
The so called consensus is withheld by the unreasonable stand of KP, Sindh and Balochistan assemblies that have spawned insoluble problems of power and water shortage while the ruling PPP sits smugly without moving even its little finger for achieving a consensus thwarted by the 44% minority population against 56% population of Punjab due to some inherent opposition to Punjab. It may be recalled that Punjab is a bread basket of Pakistan supplying millions of tons of wheat to other provinces. One can only pray for the rulers of KP and Sindh to see the light of the day to solve the intractable water and power shortage of Pakistan.
DR MUHAMMAD YAQOOB BHATTI
Lahore
