Forty percent of the total supply in water-starved Singapore comes from rainwater. Every drop is collected in a 7,000 km network of drains, canals, rivers, storm-water collection ponds and reservoirs.
But in water-deficient Pakistan where per capita per annum availability of water has dropped from 5000 to 1200 cubic meters (barely above the water-scarce level of 1000 cm), we are allowing millions of acre feet of water to escape to the sea. 100 maf, to be precise, in the last two years. The same water that could be stored for irrigation and power generation as well as to create a reserve for regulated monthly supply to the delta for year round protection.
ENGR KHURSHID ANWER
Lahore
Why you are giving example of Singapore, I have visited it at least 7 times. It is tiny country. From where it is getting water, please get more information and then talk.
Please tell me why floods are creating ruination on large scale in USA, Australia, Europe, Kenya, Sri Lanka, China, Russia, India etc.,
Here you are spreading disinformation so much so in 2010 year, PM Gilani was impressed and wrongly claimed Had KBD existed in Punjab, the flood ruination could have been avoided. If it was so easy to control national catastrophe like large scale floods, why Australia, USA etc are not controlling the floods completing by building dam like KBD with capacity of only 6.1MAF.
Your opposition not to release limited water downstream Kotri to save Indus delta and lives of 2.6 million Muslims and Pakistani Sindhis, have put me in doubt and may I ask you for whom your are working? Either dam Mafia to get big commissions or any foreign country who want to dismember Pakistan?
Please take mercy on this lovely country.
Singapore’s 99-year agreement with Malaysia on water expires in 2061, and it is racing ahead to become self-sufficient. That is why it is creating reservoirs, ponds, canals etc to store every drop of rain water. That is what sensible countries do and don’t waste precious water.
Dams cannot completely stop floods, they can only moderate the high flood peaks to minimize the damage. Tarbela dam was unable to completely stop the flood in 2010 which caused a lot of havoc in south Punjab, Sindh and Balochistsn. But that did not mean that we stopped using Tarbela dam for irrigation and power generation. Similarly the countries you have mentioned where floods have played havoc have not stopped using those dams for the other useful purposes. Your problem is that you refuse to see that dams have useful functions to perform other than just flood control
As an example of flood control see the following:
A flood of 24 lakh cusec was received at the Three Gorges Dam in China dam last Tuesday. To take the edge off the fierce flood and reduce its impact on the lower reaches of the river, the dam is storing 9 lakh cusec and allowing the rest to pass through. Before this dam was built these floods used to play havoc every year. By comparison our flood in 2010 was only 7.0 lakh cusec.
Editor: Please note that Mr Sial is making unsubstantiated charges that supporters of the dam are doing so on the behalf of foreign agencies. You are lowering the standard of your esteemed paper by allowing such libelous statements to pass unchecked. On the other hand there are many more people who accuse the opponents of Kalabagh dam for playing into the hands of India which does not want Pakistan to build Kalabagh dam to strengthen its own case for building dams on our rivers. But I don’ subscribe to that.
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