Feasibility of kala bagh dam

“Kalabagh Dam would guarantee sufficient and cheap electricity,” said the official adding that thermal power costs Rs16 per unit, where as hydel power costs Rs2.5 to Rs3 per unit.

“The big dams are needed to overcome the issue and the country would suffer severe water crisis if they were not built

According to a study, the Kalabagh Dam will have the capacity of generating 3,600MW of electricity which will save $4 billion annually for the country, excluding the 30 percent line losses.

Meanwhile according to a conservative estimate, about 30 million acre foot water is being wasted into the sea because of absence of big water reservoirs and the dam was causing the country a loss of Rs132 billion annually.

“The recent floods in Pakistan caused more than $45 billion loss which could have been averted if big dams were operational,” the official said.

Need of dams in pakistan

Unfortunately politicians are not addressing this issue seriously. Most of them are running away from reality or don’t know the reality. The reality is, that no country can survive without water specially country like Pakistan which is an agricultural country. Our water reservoirs are decreasing badly and our lands are being converted into deserts. Most of our development purely depends upon water reservoirs and we couldn’t increase water reservoirs since more than two decades while on the other hand India is continuously making dams on Pakistani rivers and snatching our water. So in this scenario we must have to increase our water reservoirs as soon as possible to irrigate more and more land and increase production which is necessary for an agricultural country. By making KBD we can also cope with energy crises and save our dying industry as well as we can save hundreds of billions rupees spending on oil import every year.

In all over the world, every country plans and complete such types of developmental projects in the vast interest of their nation and whatever the reservations there may be, have been removed tactfully by the governments. Unfortunately in Pakistan, there are people who are working on different agendas and “working hard” to spread provincialism and sectarianism. It has become a trend that if a plan is proposed by a province, now it is the duty of politicians belongs to other provinces to oppose it without thinking that it’s a national project and every citizen of the country will get benefit from it. KBD will provide electricity to whole country and it will even make possible to irrigate the millions of acre barren lands of Punjab, Khyber Pk and Balochistan. It’s just a fear and misunderstanding that Sind will face shortage of water. There will be enough water available for usage as we already throwing more than 35 MAF of water every year as a waste into the Arabian Sea.

If kalabagh dam were built

 Then do you see those protests in almost every street every road of the country showing people crying for electricity and water? No, certainly not. 

The proposed Kala Bagh dam is purely an economical and developmental plan not only for a single province but for the whole country. This is not my statement, but worlds well known experts says that it is the best and most favorable plan with respect to the location, storage capacity, energy producing and irrigation benefits for Pakistan. It has a water storage capacity between 6-7 MAF and can start producing 3600 MW of electricity in just 3 years at the cheapest rate of nearly 1 rupee per unit. Moreover it will irrigate more than 20 million acres of wasteland which boost up our agricultural production and lesser the risk of food shortage , and also during construction and after commissioning it will create about 30000 jobs. It could also reduce the intensity of disastrous flooding along the Indus.

Reasons of Non-Development of kalabagh dam:

It has become a trend that we politicize every matter without thinking its actual aspects either positive or negative.We likes to involve personal ego and party politics in every national issue in such away that it becomes a war of life and death for us while the actual matter goes into the background.Exactly same we did with the Kala Bagh dam.

The Kalabagh Dam  is a proposed hydroelectric dam on the Indus River at Kalabagh in the Mianwali District of Punjab Province in Pakistan. Intensely debated and deemed a necessity since its inception, if constructed the dam would have 3,600 megawatts (4,800,000 hp) of electricity generation capacity.