The under-construction Darawat Dam located in the Thatta and Jamshoro districts of Sindh will be completed by December this year, while the irrigation system of the project is scheduled to be completed in June 2013. The Darawat Dam is being constructed across the Nai Baran River 70 kilometers west of Hyderabad and is a component of WAPDA’s plan to construct small and medium-sized dams in addition to its mega projects in water and hydropower sectors. President Zardari had directed WAPDA to construct a number of small and medium-sized dams in the four provinces and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) for socio-economic development of the people residing in the remote areas.
These projects are being taken up in the areas, which cannot be irrigated through the Indus Basin Irrigation System to aid the optimal utilisation of water and land resources available in the country. The Darawat Dam Project will cost Rs 9.4 billion. The project will help store water for irrigated agriculture, mitigate floods, provide employment opportunities and emancipation of women.
The concrete-faced rock-filled dam is 820 feet long and 141 feet high, which will store about 120,000 acre feet of water to help irrigate 25,000 acres of land, besides creating 4,500 employment opportunities during its construction, operation and maintenance. The annual benefits of the project have been estimated at more than Rs one billion. The life of the project’s water reservoir will be more than 100 years. It is pertinent to mention here that the federal government has announced to provide upto 25 acres of land to the poor women belonging to the project area.
