ISLAMABAD: The Technical Committee on Water Resources (TCWR) is likely to recommend the construction of Kalabagh Dam, but without its right and left canals, a member of the committee told Daily Times.
The TCWR, headed by ANG Abbasi, will submit its recommendation in a report to President Pervez Musharraf by February 20.
**The TCWR comprised eight members, two from each province. A member from Sindh said his province had no reservations if the Water and Power Development Authority’s (WAPDA) designed the dam without the canal. The official said WAPDA agreed to withdraw the planned canal and submit the updated design to the committee.
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The official said that in the earlier design, a canal was planned to provide 0.78 million acre feet (MAF) in the Rabi season and 1.23 MAF in the Kharif season for irrigation. It would discharge 4.64 MAF of water into Jhelum at Rasul Barrage to meet Mangla Dam’s shortage. The dam was designed to have a left bank canal, taking off from the left bank high level outlet works of the dam. It would be 170 miles long and have a capacity of 15,000 cusecs, lifting 6.65 MAF water annually from the reservoir. The official said the new design was without the canal.
Punjab wishes to irrigate 371,000 acres of land in Mianwali, Khushab and Jhelum districts through the Kalabagh Dam. The dam has been a source of dispute between Punjab, NWFP and Sindh for a long time. The dam will be located on the Indus River, about 120 miles downstream of Tarbela Dam and 16 miles upstream of the existing Jinnah Barrage. The site is a 1,300-foot wide channel that extends over five miles.
“Kalabagh Dam was conceived by the government in 1953, but was basically a storage project for irrigation until 1973. Rapid increases in the cost of energy increased its importance as a power project,” said the official.
A 1984 project planning report tried to establish the technical and economic feasibility of the project. A detailed design and tender process was started in March 1984 and completed in December 1985. The feasibility study and documentation cost the government about Rs 1 billion.
WAPDA’s latest brief on the project says, “It is expected to be a 260 foot high structure that will create a 6.1 MAF reservoir. The annual generation of energy by a 2.4 gigawatt (GW) hydro power plant will be about 11,200 GW. The generation capacity may be increased later to 3.6 GW, making Kalabagh one of the largest hydroelectric dams in Asia. The total cost covering civil and power facilities, estimated by consultants in June 1987 prices, will be about $5.15 billion. This includes interest, customs duties, taxes and price contingencies.”
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