Full marks to Javed Ali Shah, the new minister for water resources, for claiming in his maiden statement in the national assembly that construction of Kalabagh dam will prove fruitful for the country.
How many marks will you give to Nawab Yususf Talpur of PPP for replying that there is water scarcity and shortage in the province of Sindh, but there is no need to raise the issue of Kalabagh dam in this garb?
Obviously he does not know that it is the dams which supply water when there is no water in the rivers f/or most part of the year, and the storage capacity of the dams has reduced from the original 16 maf to the present 11 maf.
Is it too difficult for him to understand that the shortage can be overcome only by building a dam with a storage capacity of 16 -11 = 5 maf at least.
It is certainly beyond him to know that Bhasha dam will be too little too late, by the time it is built it will barely replace the lost storage and generation capacity of the two existing dams, it will not irrigate even one additional acre, nor light up even one additional bulb.
But one thing that he knows for certain on the authority of his exalted leader is that Sindh will become a desert if Kalabagh dam is built. The future of 20 crore people is being held hostage to the faulty thinking of a leader, and the people who can make a difference choose to remain silent.
Eng. KHURSHID ANWER
Lahore
