Although there is a long list of betrayals that Pakistan has seen, like the sale of Pakistan’s eastern rivers and massive corruption by successive rulers, yet the mother of betrayals is the rank ingratitude in the wastage of our sweet water resources. For the past four decades there has been a steady deterioration of water resources from 5000 cubic meters per capita at independence to a nearly 1500 cubic meters per capita at present. There has been a complete failure of all the pillars of the govt, the executive, political or judicial, share the ultimate responsibility for non construction of any mega hydroelectric dam in the past four decades.
The sad story of Kalabagh dam is before us. It is a joke that the KP chief minister has said that if no city of KP would drown there could be no objection to KBD. The chief minister is blissfully unaware of views of eminent engineer Shams-ul-Mulk, former chairman of WAPDA, belonging to Naushehra that the city would not drown as KBD lake would be 10ft below and 10 miles away from Naushehra city. Even the Apex Court has kept pending a petition to call for referendum on KBD for the past 14 years and has kept the issue in a moribund state of suspended animation. The end result of the historic betrayal is that the irrigated area of Pakistan has shrunk by four per cent while the human population is growing at higher than two percent each year.
We speak of keeping abreast of India in all respects. It may be true for the defence department but alas on the economic front we are lagging behind, with obstinate refusal to utilise the God given resources of rivers that waste each year 32 MAF of water down to sea while we face famine like condition in Thar and Cholistan year in and year out. The history shows that Yemen was devastated when Siddi-Muarib dam was destroyed by Allah Almighty due to disunity of the nation. Providence may forgive individual faults but mistakes committed at national level are never forgiven which result in destruction of a nation. If we do not wake up our story would not be told in the annals of history as we would have been tried and found inept and failure bound.
DR MUHAMMAD YAQOOB BHATTI
Lahore
