PRIME Minister Imran Khan, on Monday, made a strong case for building more water reservoirs to safeguard the economic future of the country.
Addressing an international symposium on Pakistan’s hydropower development in global perspective, he said the construction of more dams would double the water storage capacity to irrigate barren lands, help the country mitigate the impact of climate change and ensure long-term solution to the rising cost of electricity generation.
There can be no two opinions that Pakistan has the potential to resolve its economic challenges especially in the realm of food security and availability of sustainable energy but progress towards realization of this potential remained pathetic because of lack of required commitment and vision on the part of successive governments.
All governments of the past talked about the significance of water reservoirs and hydro-power generation but none of them took serious and visible steps to achieve these cherished objectives.
Prime Minister Imran Khan has lamented that the previous governments didn’t care about building dams because of their myopic and election-focused policies but ground realities tell us that even non-political governments, which had nothing to do with elections, also showed no worthwhile interest in building water reservoirs or developing hydro-power potential of the country.
Former President Pervez Musharraf announced, with fanfare, construction of six mega water reservoirs but he could not initiate practical work even on one of them.
In this backdrop, the PTI Government deserves credit for undertaking substantial work on two major reservoirs — Diamer-Bhasha Dam and Mohmand Dam.
The Prime Minister had also announced plans to complete work on ten dams in the country and given his commitment one hopes progress would be made on the plan despite resource constraints as timely investment on these projects of vital economic significance would save agriculture and the economy of the country and, therefore, any investment is worth-making.
As for construction of Kalabagh Dam, the Prime Minister did not oppose it but pointed out that the federal government will have to convince Sindhis that the dam was beneficial for them.
Similar sentiments were also expressed by the Minister for Water Resources, Moonis Elahi, who stated a few days back that the project would be undertaken in view of its benefits for the country.
We hope serious and concrete efforts would be made to forge consensus on this issue purely on professional and technical grounds and the tendency of using this vital project for advancing narrow political gains would be discouraged.
