The Chief Minister of Punjab has recently admitted on a TV Channel that although he recognized the benefits of Kalabagh Dam, yet it had become a victim of politics as all the provinces did not have a consensus on it. It is a historic fact that the Water Accord of 1991 had stipulated that any hydroelectric dam feasible on the Indus may be built in future to store water and to generate power while fixing the water share on judicious basis.
The World Bank has already carried out the feasibility and engineering study of the dam since then at considerable cost and some initial work had already been started on the dam. In 1985, work was stopped and tenders were not floated due to supposed lack of consensus. It is surprising that since the past three decades no effort has been made to forge a consensus on the dam that has led to chronic shortage of water and power in the country and the burden of billions of debt from international agencies. This has doomed the development of industrial and agricultural growth in the country in the face of ever increasing population, leading to mass unemployment, deteriorating law and order situation, socio-economic collapse.
The political leaders of the sort have failed to build the dam to take Pakistan out of financial vortex. The question arises that if our politicians have failed to build a single mega dam in the past several decades, then what good are they, and the so called infertile democracy that does not deliver any socio-economic benefits to the nation, while we are threatened with utter failure of the state.
DR M YAQOOB BHATTI
Dubai, UAE