The Chamber of Small Traders Chairman and former president ICCI, Dr. Shahid Rasheed Butt on Wednesday said that Pakistan cannot win a war against load shedding in absence of the Kalabagh dam (KBD).
He asked the government to ditch projects worth billions aimed at reviving outdated dams, construct KBD since it requires less capital, and has more of a lifespan. Speaking to the business community, he said that the import of LNG would be a great achievement for the government, and the private sector, and it will save investments to the tune of billions, provide jobs to millions, and reduce intensity of energy crisis.
He said that further reductions in Asian LNG prices during the second half, as per the projections, would require the ECC to exempt importers of from paying import duty. There is no harm in revisiting the LNG development model due to the emerging challenges in the larger national interest, he stressed.
He said that the Tarbela Dam has already lost 30 per cent capacity, i.e. 6.6 million acre feet, to silting. This has left the government with little option other than to delay the construction of KBD, one of the most viable projects in Pakistan.
Our per capita water availability had already gone below 975 cubic metres per person from around 5100 cubic metres, forty-five years back, which is a great threat to industry, agriculture and for the masses. He said that Mangla dam revolutionised agriculture, Tarbela increased water supply to the canal network by 25 per cent while Sindh got an additional seven million acre feet of water.
KBD will not only help Sindh but also support agriculture in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and block floods, he added. KBD is neither a technical nor a political issue; rather it is a humanitarian matter related to national survival, said Butt.