Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government has constructed 37 small dams for storage of flood and rains water to bring arid lands under agriculture cover. The spokesman of Small Dams Directorate, Irrigation Department told APP on Wednesday the designs of seven medium dams including Barwasa and Sher Dara Swabi, Sumri Payan Kohat, Surkhaway Mar-dan, Naki Nowshera, Shaheed Banda Charssadda and Tora Warae Hangu having a total accumulative water storage capacity of 13,014 AF with 14,935 acres CCA were completed.
He said 24 small dams with accumulative water storage capacity of 75,008 AF having 49,523 acres CCA were being built in different districts of KP with assistance of Federal government. He said that 37 small and medium dams were constructed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including 15 operated by the provincial government while 11 supervised by WAPDA and ten were constructed in merged dis-tricts having 0.1377 million-acre cultivated (CCA) and 0.3414 Acres Feet (AF) water storage capacity.
He said that about 46,000 big and small dams were constructed in the world including 22,104 dams by China, 5,334 by India and only 150 dams by Paki-stan since its independence. He said small dams could easily be constructed in a short span of two to three years while big dams mostly require 10 to 15 years, adding that Pakistan would require additional 76 MAF water by 2050 which was only possible by constructing small and medium dams.
Besides completion of Pezu dam in Lakki Marwat, Khattak Bandhan dam in Kohat, and Makh Banda dam in Karak by the federal government, he said Ichar and Manchura dams at Mansehra, Chashma Akora Khel dam in Karak, Sarozai dam in Hangu, Sanam dam in Lower Dir, Bada dam and Ulta dam in Swabi were also constructed jointly by the federal and provincial governments.
