The government is set upon building the Bhasha dam to the exclusion of Kalabagh dam. This is a sure recipe for disaster. Even if and when the Bhasha dam is hopefully competed in another decade or so, it would not add to any water or power as Tarbela and Mangla would have reduced their capacity of water storage by that time. The only mitigating factor would have been to start building the Kalabagh dam as a twin dam in tandem. The latter would be competed much earlier than the Bhasha dam and it would give much relief in filling up the need of cheap power and water.
The existing dependence on IPPS and RPPS that gulp imported oil is no solution to our problem of loadshedding as the cost of power would be unaffordable for people and agitations would become endemic.
Wisdom ought to dawn on our rulers that Sindh is now floating on a lake by flood waters while wizards of Pakistan Peoples Party used to say that Sindh would become a desert if Kalabagh dam was built. If Kalabagh dam were built, Sindh would have faced lesser devastation by rainwater downstream.
DR MUHAMMAD YAQOOB BHATTI
Lahore
