- Target:
- Pakistani Govermnet, and People of Pakistan
- Region:
- Pakistan
KALABAGH DAM - THE URGENT NEED.
Before Partition in 1947 the Indus River System (IRS) used to provide water to areas that constitute Pakistan today.
After 1947 the system was also partitioned, depriving Pakistan of rivers, Sutlej, Ravi and Beas, leaving Pakistan with rivers Indus, Jhelum and Chenab. Pakistan, India signed Indus Basin Treaty in 1960 accepting the division.
KALABAGH DAM - THE URGENT NEED.
Before Partition in 1947 the Indus River System (IRS) used to provide water to areas that constitute Pakistan today.
After 1947 the system was also partitioned, depriving Pakistan of rivers, Sutlej, Ravi and Beas, leaving Pakistan with rivers Indus, Jhelum and Chenab. Pakistan, India signed Indus Basin Treaty in 1960 accepting the division.
It was agreed to build three dams under the Treaty - Mangla, Tarbela and Kalabagh(KBD) on Jhelum and Indus, to transfer their water in to Sutlej, Ravi and Beas whose waters were diverted to India while these rivers totally dried up in Pakistan. Eight huge link canals total length 400 miles were built to transfer the Indus and Jhelum waters into Sutlej and Ravi. Mangla and Tarbela were completed in 1966 and 1975 respectively. KBD was to start in 1976 but due to political turmoil it got postponed.
Since 1976 Mangla and Tarbela have lost 25% storage capacity while Pakistan's need for irrigation and urban waters, due to rising population has gone up 100%. This calls for great urgency in building KBD. As a result of shortage in surface ( canal ) water farmers are drawing more and more ground water which has caused 60 % depletion, a very dangerous situation which will reduce the fertile land into desert.
On average Pakistan is wasting to Arabian Ocean 20 million acreft (maf) of fresh and high quality water since there is no storage capacity, and no big dam has been built on Indus since 1976. All preparations to start KBD are in hand and since its site is very construction friendly, it can be built by local builders at comparatively low cost. KBD will produce 3600 MW at Rs. 1.50 per unit as compared to Rs.16.50 and Rs. 6.50 by Furnace oil and natural gas respectively and greatly eliminate load shedding.
Find more about why we need KBD and the dire situation of water resources in Pakistan in this thought-provoking and unique book by a leading authority in water resources in Pakistan: Undeclared Water War On Pakistan: Tactical And Strategic Defense Measures (Amazon Link).
BUILD KALABAGH DAM - AN URGENT NEED.
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The BUILD KALABAGH DAM - AN URGENT NEED petition to Pakistani Govermnet, and People of Pakistan was written by waqas Younes and is in the category Government at GoPetition.