So this big heated debate is going on these days about whether or not Kalabagh Dam should be constructed or not. I am thinking that we could use this thread to post various news articles and peoples points of view highlighting both sides of the issue. Lets set some rules here though for this forum:

1) Please always put a link to your news source
2) If its pro Kalabagh Dam, check the thumbs up icon for the post
3) If its anti Kalabagh Dam, check the thumbs down icon for the post.

you can also discuss it here.

Musharraf warns of Sindh’s desertification: ‘Construction of dams essential’

By Shamim Shamsi

SUKKUR, Dec 22: President General Pervez Musharraf said here on Thursday that if work on new dams was not taken up now, a process of desertification would start in Sindh after 2010.

The president said he had launched a mass contact campaign to make the people of Sindh realize the gravity of the situation and the need to build new reservoirs.

He stressed the need for consensus on the issue and said that reservations of Sindh would be removed.

He said that due to sedimentation in Tarbela and Mangla reservoirs, water resources of the country were depleting fast and, therefore, construction of new dams had become essential.

The president was addressing representatives of growers, nazims, councillors and members of the national and provincial assemblies from Sukkur, Shikarpur, Khairpur, Naushahro Feroze, Ghotki, Kashmore, Qambar-Shahdadkot, Larkana, Jacobabad and Nawabshah districts at the Sukkur airport as part of his mass contact programme.

He said his campaign was not confined to any particular dam; he was working for more dams and for formulating a national water policy under which large- and medium- water reservoirs could be built to meet the country’s future agriculture needs.

He said the issue would be discussed in the National Assembly and relevant reports would be published in Urdu, Sindhi, English and Pashto for eliciting public opinion and educating people about merit and demerits of dams. He said the issue could also be discussed in Senate and it could even be taken up at the level of judiciary.

Gen Musharraf said that keeping in view the sensitivity of the matter, he had come to directly contact the people of Sindh to tell them about the importance of water reservoirs. He said a decision on the dam would be taken after taking the people of Sindh into confidence. He said he would go to the last extent to address their ‘genuine’ reservations.

He maintained that new dams would bring more than 30 million acres of land under cultivation and strengthen the economy. He said dams were vital for Pakistan’s survival. “Any delay in a decision on dams will be suicidal for us,” he observed.

He said that a detailed designing and feasibility report of the Kalabagh dam had been completed and if work was started on the project in 2006 it would be completed in 2012.

He said the government could provide judicial and constitutional guarantees with regard to distribution of water from the dam. Institutions of parliament, judiciary and the executive could be put in action for taking such decisions and to protect the interests of Sindh, he added.

About Bhasha, Akhori and Katzara dams, the president said these were likely to be completed in 2016, 2014, 2019, respectively, and completion of the dams along with Kalabagh by 2020 would mean that the country would have 20MAF (million acre feet) of water to meet its agriculture needs.

He said the Kalabagh dam could store monsoon flows and additional flows coming from the Kabul, Chitral, Swat, Soan and Haro rivers and added that it was the only project ready for implementation. He said there were also the problem of an access road to Bhasha and some 350km road would have to be built for the purpose. He maintained that the Bhasha dam site was away from the monsoon belt and, therefore, from the feasibility point of view, Kalabagh was the most suitable site for building a dam.

Answering a question, he said it could be ensured that no canals were taken out from the Kalabagh dam and that it remained a storage reservoir.

The president also addressed journalists.

He asked the Sindh media to play its role in a positive way to educate the people of the province on the issue. He said the Kalabagh dam would bring more benefits and prosperity to Sindh than other provinces. He said he was aware that the people of Sindh had some very genuine reservations about dams, especially the Kalabagh. He said he wanted to speak to them with an open mind.

The president said the government planned to build a barrage at Sehwan which would have five canals, but work on the Rs100 billion project had been delayed because there was no water available in the absence of a dam.

He said all nine members of the technical committee, including its chairman A.N.G. Abbasi, had agreed on building major reservoirs. Eight of them had supported construction of the Kalabagh dam on the condition that no canal was taken out of it, he added.

Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad, Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahimi and other officials were also present.

APP adds: President Musharraf held in Karachi an important interaction with people of different shades of opinion on the issue of water reservoirs.

The meeting, held under the aegis of the Sindhi TV channel KTN, was also attended by the president of the Sindh Chamber of Agriculture, Syed Qamruzzaman Shah, who discussed the issue in detail vis-a-vis reservations of the people of Sindh, lack of trust and misgivings.

Without expressing opposition to the need for construction of more water reservoirs in the country, Mr Shah suggested to the president that construction of Bhasha and Kalabagh Dams should be taken up simultaneously.

A number of other participants also expressed their views on the issue.

They included former president Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari, Senate Chairman Mohammedmian Soomro, Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, federal ministers Ghous Bux Mahar and Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, Sindh former minister Imtiaz Ahmed Shaikh, Provincial Coordination Minister Dr Sohrab Sarki, Sindh Minister for Mines Irfanullah Marwat, noted intellectual Hameed Sindhi, convener of Parliamentary Committee on Water Reservoirs, Senator Nisar Ahmed Memon, prominent industrialist Zubair Motiwala and Sindh Assembly Deputy Speaker Rahila Tiwana.

President Musharraf said he could have easily wriggled out of this issue, but being a Sindhi he had taken it up in the larger interest of Pakistan and especially Sindh. He pointed out that in the past this issue had been politicized so much that it had hardened people’s stand.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/23/top1.htm

Kalabagh termed threat to national integrity

http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/23/images/top01.jpg

By Latif Baloch

KARACHI, Dec 22: Rejecting the Kalabagh dam, leaders of various political and nationalist parties on Thursday warned that the controversial project was detrimental to the sovereignty and integrity of the country.

Speaking at a big rally in front of the Sindh High Court building here on Shahrah-i-Iraq, they accused the government of conspiring against the unity of federation by creating a rift among provinces.

They criticized the military rulers for pursuing ‘ill-advised’ policies that had jeopardized the country’s integrity, particularly the Kalabagh dam plan and the ongoing military ‘operation’ in Balochistan.

The rally was organized by the Anti-Kalabagh Dam and Greater Thal Canal Action Committee which has representation of several political and nationalist organizations.

Prominent among speakers were Leader of Opposition in the Senate Raza Rabbani, Action Committee convener Syed Qaim Ali Shah, Sindh National Front chairman Sardar Mumtaz Ali Bhutto, Awami National Party president Asfandyar Wali Khan, Sindh Taraqqi Pasand Party chief Dr Qadir Magsi, Awami Party leader Rasul Bakhsh Palijo, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam leader Dr Khalid Soomro, Balochistan National Party chief Akhtar Mengal and National Party chairman Dr Abdul Hayee Baloch.

Earlier, the participants carrying flags of their respective parties and raising slogans against the Kalabagh dam and government converged on Mazar-i-Quaid and started their march towards the venue of the rally where a large number of people were already present.

In his speech, Mumtaz Bhutto said that by staging such a huge rally the people of Sindh had sent a clear message to rulers that they were against the construction of the Kalabagh dam.

He said that since Pakistan came into being rulers had been making moves to turn the life of Sindhis miserable.

He declared that unless the rule of Islamabad was put to an end and the rights of provinces were recognized, exploitation of smaller provinces would continue.

Mr Asfandyar Wali assured the Sindhi people that they were not alone in their struggle against the Kalabagh dam as Pukhtuns, Balochs and Seraikis stood behind them.

The ANP leader said he had made it clear to General Musharraf that Kalabagh dam and Pakistan could not coexist and he had to choose one of them.

In fact, he pointed out, the rulers were trying to pit smaller provinces against Punjab. He maintained that people of smaller provinces were fighting not only for rights but for their survival, and rulers should know that there would be no compromise on it.

Mr Palijo alleged that successive rulers had dishonoured the pledges of the Founder of the Nation. He said military rulers had always betrayed the masses, worked against democracy, subjugated the smaller provinces and trampled the constitutional rule.

Dr Qadir Magsi urged the government to stop what he called the victimization of smaller provinces, saying Sindhi people had proved that they would not surrender their rights.

He said Sindhi people would never allow the construction of dam as they considered it as death warrant.

Mr Mengal and the Dr Hayee Baloch condemned the rulers for launching a military operation in Balochistan. They assured the people of Sindh of their full support in their struggle against the Kalabagh dam.

PPP leader Syed Qaim Ali Shah said that Sindhis, Balochs and Pukhtuns had given their verdict that they were against the construction of the dam.

JUI’s Khalid Soomro said the country was being ruled by generals who had allegedly sold out Pakistan to Americans.

Mairaj Mohammad Khan called for early solution of the issue of the NFC award.

PPP Senator Raza Rabbani, PML-N’s leader Mamnoon Husain, National Workers Party leader Yusuf Mustikhan and others also spoke.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/23/top3.htm

Skardu-Katzarah dam best option: report

By Khaleeq Kiani

ISLAMABAD, Dec 22: The Skardu-Katzarah dam is the best option for the country and Bhasha dam is much better than Kalabagh, says the report of an expert committee on construction of water resources headed by A.N.G Abbasi.

In its 18-page “Conclusions and Recommendations” on future dams, the eight-member technical committee, calls for honouring and respecting the sanctity of the 1991 Water Accord. It also calls for providing guarantees for existing water uses of the provinces in case of construction of new dams, equitable distribution of existing and future water resources and undoing ministerial decision of 1994 on sharing of water shortages.

The full report has five volumes and is spans over more than 4,000 pages. The last 18 pages of the report, written by Mr Abbasi, were provided to Dawn by sources in the ministry of water and power.

Seven other members of the committee have separately written their joint comments. Minutes of all meetings of the committee, comments of all members and representatives of all relevant government agencies and official record and data is also part of the report. President Gen Pervez Musharraf constituted the committee to develop consensus on construction of new dams about two years ago.

Mr Abbasi has also opposed representation of NWFP and Balochistan in Indus River System Authority on the ground that two provinces remain unaffected due to any water shortage.

Following is the edited text of the “Conclusions and Recommendations” of the technical committee’s report:

On different occasions, Wapda has presented different figures about the availability of water in the country, which has created great confusion. If we take Wapda figures based on downstream approach, it becomes clear that the average water availability in the country is negative to the tune of 0.25 million acre feet (MAF). Sometimes, surplus water is also available but only in case of floods in western rivers.

Wapda has shown an average water flow of 35 MAF in the downstream in 28 years of post-Tarbela (1976-2003) period. A review of Wapda record suggest that in seven out of 28 years, 50 per cent or more of 35 MAF water went downstream Kotri and five per cent or less in another seven years.

Hence, it can be said in the light of post-Tarbela water flows that surplus water is available for storage for 10 out of 28 years. If a dam of six MAF of storage capacity is constructed, then only 22 per cent of the surplus available water can be stored.

Another dam of same capacity could additionally store another 18.9 per cent of available surplus water. This means that two new dams could together store 41 per cent of water in surplus years and remaining 59 per cent water would go downstream.

By comparison with these two dams (Kalabagh and Bhasha), if a carryover dam of 35 MAF (Skardu-Katzarah) storage capacity is constructed, about 84 per cent of water in surplus years could be stored.

If a dam is built with a capacity of six MAF, it can be filled for 10 years in 28 years and if another dam of same capacity is built, it can be filled for seven years and partially filled for three years. A carryover dam of 35 MAF of capacity would be completely filled for three out of 28 years and partially filled for seven years.

WATER SHORTAGE: In Rabi season, 23 MAF of water is available, of which 15 MAF could be stored in Mangla and Tarbela dams. The construction of these two dams has increased the overall water availability by 65 per cent in Rabi season.

Wapda’s post-Tarbela study reveals that surplus water is available in the canal system during Rabi and shortage is experienced for only a few years. On the other hand, shortage is more common during Kharif and hence there is no surplus water to build new dams.

FLOOD CANALS: Flood canals, like Katchi, Rainee and the Greater Thal canal being built under Wapda’s Vision 2025 programme, should be given least priority and maximum preference should be given to 36 million acres of the existing irrigated land. For this, 117.35 MAF water share of provinces as determined in the 1991 Accord should be protected and at least 10 MAF of water below Kotri should be guaranteed.

LINK CANALS: Link canals like Chashma-Jhelum and Taunsa-Punjnad are not permanent canals and replacement works does not in any case mean that these are privileged canals. These link canals could only be operated when there is surplus water in the system and with express consent of Sindh and these should not be a permanent burden on river Indus.

If this proposition continues then the plans for construction of new reservoirs would be jeopardized, as it would increase reservations among the people.

This should also be declared “once and for all” that Chashma-Jhelum and Taunsa-Punjnad are inter-provincial canals and do not belong to Punjab only. Hence, Irsa should not release water to these two canals on the indent of Punjab along and instead these should be operated on all-Pakistan basis under 1991 water accord in an equitable manner.

GUIDELINES FOR LINK CANALS: Water from Indus River should not be diverted through link canals unless all the provinces are given their share approved on 10-daily basis by the council of common interest under the 1991 accord.

In normal circumstances, water should not be released through Chashma-Jhelum and Taunsa-Punjnad canals in Kharif season because there is enough water available in the Jhelum-Chenab Zone during Kharif. If at all there is a need, water should be released in these canals through provincial consensus under 10-dailies approved in the water accord and no more. The CJ and TP should not be operated when Mangla dam is being filled.

GUIDELINES ON DAMS: The storage in future dams should start only after meeting requirement of all the existing barrages on 10-daily basis approved under the 1991 accord and after ensuring separate 10-MAF of water for Kotri Downstream.

Second, the storage in new dams should start after filling the Tarbela dam. In extraordinary situations, when there is surplus water then new dams could also be filled simultaneously.

Third, it should be incorporated in the operation of dams that continuous flushing is taking place simultaneously to ensure that there is no accumulation of silt in dams.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR WATER USES FROM DAMS: First, water from new dams would be utilised to meet only shortages based on 10-daily uses approved by the CCI under the 1991 Water Accord.

Second, the distribution of water from new dams among the provinces should be made under Para-4 of the 1991 Accord that guarantees 37 per cent share each to Sindh and Punjab, 14 per cent for the NWFP and 12 per cent for Balochistan.

Third, new dams would not be filled to the capacity and the filling would be made based on expected annual availability. This means that new dams would not necessarily be filled every year even if these were not filled for 10 years. This principle would also be applicable in case of Tarbela and Mangla dams’ filling.

Four, about 3.2 MAF of storage capacity has been lost in the existing reservoirs due to accumulation of silt, which would be recovered by the completion of raising of Mangla Dam project. If life of the dams is to be enhanced, then the problem of silt would have to be removed which could be done only through installation of sluicing devices. The report said the Wapda has put under the carpet a detailed study under Tam’s Report of 1998 on sluicing devices.

LARGE DAMS: The Wapda has taken no step as required under the year 2000 report of the World Commission on Dams, which had been prepared in the light of experiences of large dams constructed throughout the world. This report should be taken into account before taking any decision on construction of large dams in the country.

RECOMMENDATIONS ON NEW DAMS: Katzarah-Skardu is the only feasible dam for carryover purposes. Its pre-feasibility study has been completed while feasibility study could be completed in three to four years. “This is the best dam for the country” because dams are constructed on four principles, the report said.

These include: a dam should have maximum storage capacity, it could give maximum benefits, it has bare minimum cost and maximum power generation capacity and it should not have a problem of silt. Only Katzarah-Skardu meets these criteria.

The feasibility study of Kalabagh dam was conducted in 1984 and 1988. It has neither been updated since then nor its cost been reviewed. All assumptions used in these studies are pre-water accord period and post- accord figures have so far not been considered. Hence, its feasibility study should be conducted afresh. In the given circumstances, Bhasha dam with a higher potential is much better than Kalabagh dam.

There are a number of reservations on Kalabagh dam, particularly over its right bank canal, left bank canal and flooding of Nowshera. All these issues should be settled to remove reservations and fears.

It may also be pointed out that if Kalabagh and Bhasha dams, if constructed, would not be filled every year and instead would remain empty for years. Besides, these dams would not be able to provide more than two MAF for many years. Hence, large expenditures on new dams should be made after taking into account all these factors.

Furthermore, another thing should also be kept in mind that whenever a new dam is built, preference should be given to the rights of the lower riparians than filling of dams and in case of any shortage, it should be met under the 1991 accord.

The sanctity of the 1991 Water apportionment accord should be ensured and guaranteed and the provinces should be given water share on the basis of 10-daily uses approved by the CCI under para 14(a) and 14(b) of the accord.

The ministerial decision of 1994 has no legal ground and hence should be undone and directives issued by President General Musharraf on October 23 in this regard should be implemented.

If a province is not sharing water shortage, it has no right to be a member of the Irsa. Punjab is drawing higher water share under historic annual average uses of 1977-82, while NWFP and Balochistan does not share shortages. This means that only Sindh suffers in case of shortage, which is totally unjustified. Hence, the water accord should be implemented in letter and spirit and decisions of the CCI should be honoured, the report concluded.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/23/top4.htm

Pagara supports Kalabagh dam


By Habib Khan Ghori

KARACHI, Dec 22: Pakistan Muslim League (Functional) chief Pir Pagara on Thursday announced his support for the Kalabagh dam which, he said, would also benefit Hurs. Pir Pagara was addressing a crowded press conference at his residence ‘Kingri House’ on Thursday afternoon.

He said the dam was being opposed due to the prevailing mistrust with Punjab. It will be the obligation of President Musharraf, or whosoever is in command, to implement all terms and conditions regarding the dam and the water accords, including the one signed in 1991.

The PML-F chief said that he had earlier stated that there was no future of the Sindh Assembly. It was the president who had been keeping it alive despite its unwieldiness. Now it appears there is no need to keep this “lifeless house” in place and the vacuum can be filled with a caretaker set-up.

On the possibility of a national government, he said there was no way left to overcome the current crisis (except by forming a national government) but it all depended on the president as to who should be invited and inducted in the cabinet. He recalled that he had forecast that the system was not going to work.

When his attention was drawn to a statement of Sindh chief minister against the Kalabagh dam, the spiritual leader of Hurs said the weather was changing and he had a hunch that a political quake was waiting in the wings, which might turn everything topsy-turvy.

On Dr Arbab Rahim’s remarks that he would rather go back home riding on a donkey than support the dam, the PML-F chief wondered how his area, a desert, could be irrigated. As such, he would only see water but won’t be able to use it.

Regarding the president’s remarks about a political quake in the country, Pir Pagara said he was not aware of the timing of the quake but the president was very much clear when the quake would strike.

When asked how much support President Musharraf would be able to muster during his visit to Sindh, he said it was not his concern whether the president got support from institutions “but we want to cultivate our lands”.

When pointed out that the Kalabagh dam was the only subject on which his views converged with those of PML chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, he recalled that he had been favouring the construction of the dam right from the beginning. “If dams are built, electricity would be available at cheap rates. At present we are suffering because of PPP which had made electricity costly.”

He said except Kalabagh, no other dam could be built first because of the ease of moving heavy machinery to the site.

About Kalabagh opponents’ view that the country would break up if the project was taken up, Pir Pagara said no province could be separated from the country unless the big province pushed it so, or a foreign power annexed it.

When it was pointed out that his party’s legislators were also opposed to the dam plan and that his party could see erosion of its vote bank for lending support to Kalabagh, the PML-F chief said everyone had the right to his opinion.

“As far as we are concerned, the 1991 water accord favoured Sindh as the province received a larger share of water for cultivation, which benefited the Hurs. But the Benazir government signed another agreement in 1994 which hurt Sindh’s interest.”

Pir Pagara sought media’s support in getting the 1991 accord implemented as the PPP was against it. The Thal canal and Reni canal would end up irrigating the lands of Hurs which was objected to by PPP leader Shah Muhammad Shah. “The Thal canal would come up to Mitthi while Reni canal would stop at Umarkot which would bring a vast area under cultivation,” he said.

He said at the annual gathering on 27th Rajab at Dargah Pir Jo Goth he had given good news to his followers that very soon the issue of dam would arise and they (the followers) would get water in excess to cultivate their land, particularly in the desert areas of Sindh.

He said no landlord was opposed to the Kalabagh dam as only those were agitating who did not have any land. He said “you cannot find any landlord saying he does not want water or who was ready to accept less water”.

The PML-F chief said those opposing the dam were self-styled Sindhi leaders who were in the habit of saying first “Na Khape”.

At the time of construction of Ghulam Muhammad Barrage, it was said that it would only benefit Hurs “but now the entire Sindh is taking advantage of its water”.

http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/23/top5.htm

Wow!
So much political hooplah. Four separate news items in just one issue of the newspaper

edit: actually 7 different articles.

ANP sets up committees for rally against dam

By Our Correspondent

PESHAWAR, Dec 22: The Awami National Party has reiterated its opposition to the construction of the Kalabagh dam and has asked party workers to participate in the anti-Kalabagh dam rally to be held on Dec 29. In this connection, the Nowshera district chapter of the party met on Thursday and formed several committees to make arrangements for the rally, said a party press release here.

Speaking on the occasion, ANP provincial secretary general Mian Iftikhar Hussain said that district Nowshera would play a central role in the rally.

He said that invitation had been extended to other parties to participate in the rally to thwart what he called President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s attempts to destroy fertile lands.

The rally would prove that the people don’t accept the Kalabagh dam because it was a project aimed at the destruction of the people of smaller provinces at the cost of Punjab.

ANP FATA: The ANP Fata chapter also held a meeting at the Bacha Khan Markaz on Thursday which pledged to ensure maximum participation in the rally.

The meeting was attended by presidents and general secretaries of Fata’s units and provincial party chief Bashir Ahmad Bilour. It was presided over by the party’s provincial vice-president Imran Afridi.

It said that the party had decided to demonstrate on Dec 29 to show its opposition to the Kalabagh dam.

Imran Afridi said that the time had come that party workers came out into the streets and opposed the construction of the Kalabagh dam.

He said that party workers were ready to render any sort of sacrifice to prevent the rulers from playing havoc with their lives.

ANP NWFP president Bashir Bilour said that a huge procession would march towards Nowshera on the scheduled day to take part in the rally.

ANP COMMITTEE: The Anti-Kalabagh Committee of the ANP launched a campaign to gain the support of other parties for participation in the rally.

In this connection, the committee’s chairman, Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, along with its members, Abdul Latif Afridi, Pir Fayyaz Ahmad and Hameedur Rehman, held a meeting with Mukhtiar Ahmad Khan provincial chief of the Pakhtun Milli Awami Party (PMAP) and requested for his party’s support for taking part in the rally.

PMAP’s provincial chief assured his party’s fullest support for the rally.

Committee members also held a meeting with Sabir Shah, provincial chief of the PML-Nawaz.

The PML leader informed the committee that they would decide about participating in the rally in a PML meeting which would be held on Dec 25.

The committee’s chairman urged the participation of all political parties in the rally, saying it was a national issue and all parties should fulfil its national responsibilities in this regard.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/23/nat49.htm

Punjab PPP to support Sindh on Kalabagh


By Our Staff Reporter

LAHORE, Dec 22: The Punjab PPP will join hands with party’s Sindh leader Qaim Ali Shah when he visits the city to protest against the construction of Kalabagh Dam. This was stated by provincial information secretary Naveed Chaudhry while speaking at a press conference along with central deputy information secretary Altaf Qureshi and Iqbal Sialvi here on Thursday.

“People of the Punjab will be siding with their brethren in other provinces in fight against dictatorial decisions of the present regime,” he said.

The Punjab executive council of the party met earlier in the day and adopted a resolution opposing the water reservoir without taking into confidence all federating units. Otherwise the project would endanger solidarity of the country, it feared.

It instead supported construction of small dams whose planning had been done during the second tenure of Ms Benazir Bhutto.

The council expressed its concern at ongoing army “operation” in Balochistan and demanded immediate end to it.

Referring to various directions issued by the Supreme Court to the Punjab government on issues like kite-flying, lavish spending on marriages, etc., it observed that if the province had to be run by the apex court then the government should resign.

Mr Chaudhry said the party had taken notice of PML-N leader Khwaja Saad Rafiq’s anti-PPP statements and had lodged a formal protest with the ARD leadership.

Answering a question, he said adjustments in elections for offices of naib nazims at tehsil and district level the same ARD formula would be adopted that had been implemented in earlier three phases of local polls.

He told reporters that various functions and workers conventions would mark 77th birth anniversary of late prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto from next month. In Lahore, the function would be held on Jan 5.

PML-N: Syed Zafar Ali Shah of the PML-N says construction of Kalabagh dam should be halted until real representatives of the masses take charge of the country’s affairs.

He was speaking at a joint press conference along with MNA Khwaja Saad Rafiq here on Thursday.

“The present assemblies should be dissolved immediately to introduce a government of national consensus for holding fair elections. The dam issue should be left to the people to be elected in these polls.”

The ruling coalition wanted to adopt a resolution in parliament favouring Kalabagh dam but neither the incumbent parliament nor the four provincial assemblies were authorized to approve or disapprove the project, he claimed.

The Khwaja said Gen Musharraf was the main hurdle in the development of a national consensus so the army ruler must resign.

Minto: National Workers Party chief and former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association Abid Hasan Minto has suggested a political solution to the water reservoirs issue by holding dialogue on an equal basis among all federating units.

In a statement on Thursday, he said the step first required cancelling the “unilateral” decision of the government to construct Kalabagh dam.

He said the matter should be referred to the Council of Common Interests which was a constitutional body but has never been activated.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/23/nat13.htm

Protest against Kalabagh dam


By Our Correspondent

SHIKARPUR, Dec 22: Activists of the People’s Party Parliamentarians and its affiliated organizations observed a token hunger strike to protest against construction of Kalabagh dam at the Lakhi gate tower chowk on Thursday. Agha Shamsuddin and Mohammad Paryal of the PPP, Lala Zeb Khan (PPP youth wing), Syed Irfan Shah (SPSF), Syed Umerdin Shah and Maqsood Ahmed participated in the hunger strike.

They rejected the controversial project and termed it a conspiracy against the people of Sindh.

KILLED: Two people were killed and another was injured in an exchange of firing with villagers in Qalandar Bux Gopang village on Wednesday night.

A group of outlaws entered the house of Manthar Gopang to commit an offence.

They opened fire when the villagers retaliated to foil the bid to rustle the cattle.

As a result, two outlaws, later identified as Sabir Jafri and Abid Lohar, were killed.

Their accomplice Deedar Marfani received bullet injuries and was caught by villagers.

The injured was handed over to the Stuart Ganj police.

Later, he was admitted to the civil hospital.

Our Hyderabad Correspon-dent adds: Lawyers of Hyderabad held anti-Kalabagh dam rally outside the press club on Thursday.

The advocates gathered in premises of the sessions court and raised slogans against controversial water project and then reached the press club.

Speaking to protesters the president of the Hyderabad District Bar Association, Chaudhry Bashir Gujjar said that the people of Sindh had already rejected the Kalabagh dam because it would render Sindh dry.

He said that the people would not accept any anti-Sindh project.

Mr Gujjar said that lawyers would also not become part of any such conspiracy as they were loyal to the soil of Sindh.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/23/nat46.htm

SC approached on dam issue

By Our Staff Reporter

ISLAMABAD, Dec 23: A Karachi-based social worker on Friday petitioned the Supreme Court ‘to provide guidelines’ on construction of the controversial Kalabagh dam.

Chairman Awami Himmayat Tehrik Pakistan Maulvi Iqbal Haider has pleaded that the provincial assemblies, which passed resolutions against the dam, and leaders of opposition in these assemblies were bound under Article 155 of the constitution to incorporate their reservations and objections in a written complaint to be filed before the Council of Common Interest (CCI).

Mr Haider has cited the federal government, and the governments of the Punjab, Sindh, the NWFP and Balochistan as well as leaders of the opposition in the four provincial assemblies as respondents in the petition.

The petitioner contended that under Article 184(1) 184(2) and 184(3) of the constitution the apex court was empowered to decide disputes between two or more governments, i.e. provincial or federal.

He also suggested that the federal government was competent to request the Chief Justice of Pakistan to appoint an arbitrator to settle disputes between provinces.

The resolutions adopted by the provincial assemblies against the dam were only meant to extend their political agenda instead of strengthening national cohesion. This, the petitioner argued, was evident from the fact that none of these assemblies bothered to file a complaint before the CCI under Article 155 (complaints as to interference with water supplies).

Iqbal Haider alleged that different political, religious and ethnic groups were exploiting the dam issue ever since the federal government had decided to build new reservoir to meet future water needs.

The respondents, the petitioner pleaded, were deliberately misleading innocent and peaceful people by creating controversy over construction of dam promote hatred among the four provinces. They had also given strike calls and held demonstrations to create law and order situation in their respective provinces. They, in fact were trying to divide the nation, he alleged.

He pleaded that the apex court had wide jurisdiction to interpret different articles of the constitution involved in the controversy.

http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/24/top13.htm

Dam to benefit peasants of Sindh: Musharraf

By Our Correspondent

HYDERABAD, Dec 23: Stressing the need for building more water reservoirs, President General Pervez Musharraf has said that peasants of the provence will the man beneficiaries. He also said that every village in the country would get electricity 2007 under a Wapda plan.

He was addressing a select gathering of students, youths and growers at the circuit house here on Friday.

Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad and Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim were present on the occasion.

He linked building of reservoirs with welfare of peasants whose life depended on their land and who constituted 70 per cent of Sindh’s population.

“I will be the last person to harm Sindh since I am a Sindhi and I cannot take anti-Sindh decisions. I am here to give you something”, he said.

He said that at times leaders had to change path of directions in order to set new trends.

“True leader is not a person who swims with the current but who changes the wrong path with his conviction”, he said.

He said he was in fact interested in wellbeing of peasants in order to save them from destruction.

He said that by 2020 water shortage would be recorded at 15 to 20 MAF on account of increasing agricultural demands.

“There is no need to get emotional because the peasants of Sindh would suffer in the absence of water reservoirs”, he said.

He said he knew that sea erosion had destroyed land in Thatta due to non-release of water Kotri downstream.

He said water could only be released downstream when there was water storage.

He said that monsoon season subsoil water in Sindh was saline while in Punjab it was sweat and farmers could use tube-wells even if canals remain non-perennial.

He said the construction of reservoirs would permanently control the release of water at downstream Kotri so that Thatta and Badin could get water throughout the year.

He said that the building of Skardu dam would submerge forts, being restored by Prince Karim Aga Khan, but the Kalabagh dam could get water from the Kabul, Chitral, Swat, Soan and Haro rivers.

“You can take 10 guarantees at a time, either constitutional, judicial or administrative, and even Sindhi engineers can be made in-charge of the dams”, he suggested.

He said that he encouraged Sindhi youths to join army and now 80,000 Sindhis were serving in the army.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/24/nat15.htm

PPP to hold anti-dam rally in Pir-jo-Goth

By Our Correspondent

KHAIRPUR, Dec 23: The People’s Party Parliamentarians has announced that it will hold a rally against the Kalabagh dam in Pir-Jo-Goth, the native town of Pir Pagara. The announcement was made by former district nazim Nafisa Shah while talking to newsmen here on Friday.

She said the rally would be held in collaboration with nationalist parties to prove that people were against the dam.

Ms Shah said Pir Pagara’s support for the controversial dam showed that he did not want unity of the federation.

She said the Pir’s stance represented views of only a handful of people while an absolute majority of Sindh was against dams on the Indus River.

She said the campaign run by President Gen Pervez Musharraf and some federal ministers to gain support for Kalabagh dam was an insult to the people of three provinces.

She said as per the Constitution, no project could be undertaken without consensus.

She appreciated the Pakistan People’s Party Punjab for holding anti-Kalabagh dam protests in the province.

She said major political parties of the country, the PPP, Pakistan Muslim League-N and Tehrik-i-Insaf, had also opposed the Kalabagh dam.

Ms Shah said the view of the Sindh cabinet was still not clear about the dam issue.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/24/nat17.htm

what a load of political mish mash
:horse:


Steps I would have taken if I were in Musharraf's situation:
1) appoint a national Kalabagh Dam team of independently picked, professionally trained, technical experts to study the requirements for a dam, its design, its benefits, and its ecological effects
2) make every pakistani TV channel follow the team's investigations reality-TV style
3) make the team present its final reports on TV and on all major newspapers. Ask the team to make recommendations.
4) call the leaders of the areas that will be affected (by its benefits and its repurcussions) for a round table meeting that is held behind closed doors, present the findings to them, and ask them to arrive at a solution whether it takes three days of being locked up inside a room to do it. Unless they agree on a final solution, they are not gonna be let out of the room.
5) BAN ALL POLITICAL MUDSLIGNING and propaganda

JEEZ

Even after reading all the articles I can not make up my decision. But I think I would go for the Kalabagh damn.

Aint the Skardu-Katzara dam a beeter option no one opposes it, it can hole more water than kalabagh and Basha dam and can last up till a thousand years and can prevent pakistan from super floods which take place every 10 years.

Technical committee likely to back Skardu dam

By Khaleeq Kiani

ISLAMABAD, : The Senate's technical committee on water resources is reported to have observed in its report that the Skardu-Katzara dam is the only viable option owing to lack of consensus on other big dams, like Kalabagh and Bhasha, it is learnt.

Informed sources told Dawn that the report is named after ANG Abbasi who will submit it before the Senate, but it will include diverging views of all members of the committee.

The report, the sources said, had sought reactivation of the Council of Common Interest (CCI), which is the only constitutional forum to decide inter-provincial disputes, and whose absence had politicised and made major water-storage projects controversial.

The sources said that the committee, in the report, had admitted that it had not been able to forge consensus on prioritizing the future dams, total water availability, distribution of water among the provinces, operations of link canals and filling criteria for dams. All these issues, the report says, can be resolved at the CCI level.

The committee, sources said, has held that notwithstanding some defence considerations, the Skardu dam, with 35 million acre feet (maf) storage capacity, can best store the water of "supper-flood" which traditionally comes once in a decade and that could be conserved by no other dam including Kalabagh and Bhasha.

It could irrigate, primarily through gravity flow, the whole of Pakistan, including Balochistan, Thar and Cholistan deserts, and its construction would amount to implementation of 90 per cent of the 1991 Water Accord and help eradicate poverty in vast parts of the country. However, it would submerge whole of Skardu and a lot of underground and surface defence facilities, the report has added.

Although the project is a part of Wapda's vision-2025, its construction and resettlement cost is yet to be ascertained. A study on its technical details and merits and demerits is likely to be available by the end of 2005. Skardu dam would have a long storage life of about 1,000 years.

On the other hand, Kalabagh dam would have a storage capacity of 6.1maf and a power generation capacity of 3,600mw. Its feasibility study and design are complete.

The Bhasha dam would have a storage capacity of 7.3maf and power generation capacity of 4,500mw. Both Kalabagh and Bhasha, with storage capacity between 6maf and 7maf, could cater for carry-over needs for one year only and not the once-in-a-decade supper floods, the report, according to sources, says.

They said Mr Abbasi had been under pressure from some intelligence agencies and he had recently brought this to the notice of President General Pervez Musharraf. The president, the sources said, had asked Mr Abbasi to complete his professional job without any pressure or fear.

The sources said the president had recently told a group of Pakistan Muslim League legislators that he had gathered, from his own sources, that Kalabagh dam had the support of seven members of the nine-member Senate's committee on water resources.

One of these parliamentarians, requesting anonymity, told Dawn that the president could attach top priority to Kalabagh dam, followed by Bhasha dam, on the basis of majority vote in the technical committeeand supported by the Senator Nisar Memon-led parliamentary committee on water resources. The two reports would also be presented before the parliament for debate, he said.

The final report of the Senate's committee would also mention a Pakistan Meteorological Department report which predicts fast depletion of Himalayan glaciers in the next 25 years and suggests construction of a big dam that could be used as a long-term carry over dam with a capacity to feed agriculture for a longer period.

http://www.dawn.com/2005/02/19/top5.htm

WAPDA’s conduct on dams

Engr Fateh Ullah Khan

Despite being a Federal agency WAPDA has displayed a parochial attitude on Kalabagh Dam. It has also adopted a non-professional attitude on the planning and investigations of Katzarah Dam, Akhori Dam, Basha Dam and Skardu Dam. Wrong planning and insular investigations of dams have therefore destroyed the achievement of optimum potential of water and power resource. The world’s third largest reservoir dam at Katzarah with storage capacity of 35-maf is intentionally mishandled in desk studies in spite of the fact that the President has approved to conduct its detailed pre-feasibility report. Its name is also changed to Skardu Dam and its storage capacity is shown as 5.2 maf against 35-maf as reported by Dr Pieter Lieftnick in 1968 and by this scribe in 1962. Due to parochial attitude, dams are wrongly and randomly planned by WAPDA to fulfil provincial cravings.

The 30-year-old controversy and obstinacy on Kalabagh Dam is an ugly example followed by another example of naming Katzarah as Skardu and drastically showing its reduced potential on the basis of wrong desk studies. Similarly, WAPDA never thought of finding an alternative dam site to Kalabagh but obstinately wasted 30 years of most precious time in status quo since 1974. Politics in dams has been introduced, creating a water and power crises. Excellent dam sites are purposely discredited on false pretext under the so-called desk studies by charlatans, thereby misleading the Federal Government and the provinces and prolonging disputes among them and creating shortage of water and power. The Federal Ministry has no source to get second opinion on WAPDA’s wrong project planning concepts and fraudulent reporting, therefore the Ministry as policy-maker follows what WAPDA dictates and as a result the provinces suffer. The Government may, therefore, study the conduct of WAPDA on 5 dams under consideration besides the two drainage projects of SCARPs and NDP that failed and caused losses of billions of dollars. Wrong planning of water resources is creating famine-like conditions in the country.

The 35-maf "Katzarah Dam" is the world’s third largest reservoir dam on the Indus. This dam site is discovered and named after the village Katzarah by this scribe in 1962 and was confirmed by Dr Pieter Lieftnick in 1968 in his report on page 144. Out of shear jealousy and undue support to the hydraulically infeasible Kalabagh Dam, WAPDA intentionally changed the name of 35-maf Katzarah Dam site as Skardu Dam and thus drastically reduced its optimum potential of 35-maf of storage capability to 5.2 maf. This is recently shown by WAPDA on a map to misguide the provinces and the Ministry after I pointed out this unique dam to the Parliamentary Committee headed by Senator Nisar Ahmad Memon in a meeting held by him at Peshawar and at Islamabad. This dam was officially pointed out to all concerned when I was Chairman IRSA in 1994. It was also published in the press on numerous occasions. The fact is that Skardu Dam site is 22 km on the up stream of Katzarah Dam site. The trick of renaming the dam and showing its extremely reduced potentials is going to destroy the unique water and power resources to be accrued from Katzarah Dam. This is because WAPDA feels embarrassed for failing to discover such a unique dam. The actual Skardu Dam site as selected by the World Bank Consultant Team is described below.

The World Bank Consultants headed by Dr Pieter Lieftnick in 1968 had already fixed the Skardu Dam site. It is immediately downstream of the confluence of Shigar River with the Indus River about 4 km upstream of the town of Skardu. (Refer to Dr Pieter Lieftnick report volume-I, page 283 as proof). Again, refer to page 296 of the same report where the height of Skardu Dam at this site is shown as 310 feet, its length is 3700 feet and storage capacity as 8-maf. This documentary fact clearly shows that WAPDA is not giving a true picture on dam sites and on their potential.

Had WAPDA built Katzarah Dam earlier in 1962 it would have served as a carryover storage and its storage would have helped the current hydrological drought as in 1994 about 92 maf of water was wasted to sea.

Katzarah Dam due to its unique storage would serve as a development dam, replacement dam, inter-seasonal dam, Indus River regulation dam, carryover dam, power generation dam, flood control dam, irrigation dam and poverty alleviation dam. All other dams with very low storage capacity like Kalabagh, Akhori, Basha and Skardu are only replacement dams to replace storage lost due to silting of Tarbela and Mangla.

Katzarah Dam can irrigate about 10 million acres of barren lands in the four provinces including the area of Thar Desert through the proposed All Pakistan Grand Canal off taking on the Right Bank of the Indus from a new barrage to be located below Chashma barrage.

But WAPDA has determined not to build any dam on the main stem of the Indus in spite of the fact that it has potential for developing about 40,000 MW of hydropower and storage capacity of about 75 maf of water. Therefore, WAPDA has adopted false plea that transportation facilities are not available to build Basha, Katzarah and Skardu Dams. But this wrong plea has been contradicted by no less a person than the Chairman NHA himself. He declared that the road is capable of transporting all kinds of machinery to the dam site at Basha and Katzarah. WAPDA’s negative conduct on dams on the main stem of the Indus is not in national interest. The highhandedness of WAPDA can be judged that M/S Shahzad International LTD Islamabad has offered to prepare free of cost pre-feasibility of Katzarah Dam with the help of Chinese experts. But WAPDA surprisingly refused the free offer when it was made known by the Secretary Water and Power in a big meeting with the Parliamentary Committee on Water Resources. The intention behind the refusal was to conduct feasibility by WAPDA under its own direct control so as to minimise the unique potential of Katzarah Dam and confuse it with Skardu Dam. Actually this has happened, as Katzarah Dam is named as Skardu Dam and its storage is shown in three colours on a map marking it as reservoir 1, 2 and 3 with storage capacities as 5 maf, 8 maf and 20 maf. At the same time WAPDA created panic spreading remarks that the entire Skardu valley will be destroyed. It did not mention its unique merits. WAPDA has intentionally carried out wrong and misleading desk studies instead of detailed pre-feasibility to hide the great potentials of Katzarah. WAPDA should have conducted pre-feasibility studies through some reputed foreign consultants as this study was approved and desired by the President himself.

WAPDA and Punjab want Kalabagh Dam by hook or by crook. WAPDA should realise that Punjab and Sindh each would get 13 maf of water as their share in 35-maf of Katzarah storage. NWFP will get about 4.9 maf and Balochistan about 4.2 maf of water. In spite of all this WAPDA has only two specific choices. First choice is Kalabagh and the second is Akhori. IRSA and the World Bank Consultants rejected both these dams on technical grounds respectively.

There is no problem with Basha Dam. However, if compared to the 35-maf Katzarah Dam, its storage is only 7-maf of water nearly at the same cost. In such a situation Katzarah Dam must be given preference. However, under the circumstances Katzarah and Basha both must start simultaneously.

Similarly, there is no problem with 8-maf Skardu Dam located on the downstream of the confluence of Shigar River with Indus River about 4 km upstream of Skardu town. However, Skardu Dam would be submerged and overlapped by the construction of 35-maf Katzarah Dam located 22 km away from the site of Skardu Dam.

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/oct2004-daily/23-10-2004/oped/o5.htm

People and political leaders opposing Kala Bagh Dam has no real issues and nothing more than lame excuses but personal and political gains..

Both Kala Bagh and Bhasha dams are vital for our survival, we must build both but first Kala Bagh dam..

Most people are saying that this dam is being built for PUNJAB, if even PPP punjab is protesting against the dam then it's 100% clear that these lame rallies and protests are politically motivated and it has nothing to do with the real benefits or loss to the people of Pakistan.

I personally think, it should NOT be built if it creates so much tension, why give these MEAN IDIOTS a chance to ruin the peace of our country???

Skardu dam

Recipe for disaster


M Ismail Khan

Politics may be the art of the possible, but apparently not as far as Pakistani politicians are concerned. The technical committee on water resources in the Senate of Pakistan, reportedly, is set to unfold another impossible dam proposal which recommends construction of the world's largest water reservoir, that too on the roof of the world.

The proposed Skardu Dam with estimated water storage capacity of 35 million acre feet (maf) will submerge all of Skardu, capital of Baltistan or Little Tibet in the Northern Areas. An outburst or accident of a high altitude dam of this magnitude once unleashed can effectively affect all major cities of the country, including Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi into the Arabian Sea.[B]

It seems that the senate's technical committee, particularly A.N.G. Abbassi, [B]has bought the idea being promoted by a bunch of misguided civil engineers, mostly from NWFP, who have been advocating the construction of Skardu dam, which would involve lucrative mega projects and also take the heat off from controversies generated by the Kalabagh and Basha dams. Whatever be the implicit motives, what is clear that these people have little knowledge and understanding about mountain ecology, environment and natural heritage.

They are also dangerously blank on Pakistan's long-term strategic interests. Otherwise, how could they propose the construction of such a huge water reservoir within the artillery firing range of a hot border? It will take less than a minute of flight time for an Indian aircraft to approach the proposed dam. Skardu is the most porous valley in the Northern Areas that provides for defence facilities including the vital airbase and military command and control hub for protection of the critical Pakistan-China road link, and maintenance of the status quo in Gultari, Ladakh and Siachan sectors. There is no other potential or alternate military base to replace Skardu.

On the other hand Skardu valley, capital of Baltistan, has its own unique ecological, cultural and environmental significance. Sandwiched between one of the world's highest plateaus Deosai and the largest naturally formed glacier outside the poles, Skardu is the historical seat of the Balti Kingdom, and the hub of the Balti cultural heritage. The dusty town dotted around with an amazing mix of lakes, sand dunes, streams, snow-clad mountains and terraced fields and orchards, serves as cultural melting pot of the Balti people. It is the life-line of the over 300,000 Baltis sparsely populated in numerous valleys who already face multiple challenges as an ethnic minority in the religiously radicalised social scene of the country.

Situated amidst the world's newest and the most fragile mountain system, which is prone to earthquakes and other natural calamities, a 35 million acre feet dam in the heart of Karakoram will be nothing but a recipe for disaster. One doesn't even need to be a geologist, glaciologist or climate change expert to realise that a minor shift in the hydrological cycle due to permanent storage of a large water body can play havoc with the sensitive mountain ecology. Imagine the situation if a dam outburst of such magnitude starts rushing down to the hills of NWFP and plains of Punjab and Sindh. The gravity flow triggered by thousands of meters high tsunami-like waves can be disastrous for the entire country. The water reservoir being proposed by the honourable senators can thus potentially imperil the very existence of Pakistan and make it vulnerable to a super mega flood.

It is also evident that the moisture and climatic effects generated by a massive water body will hasten the melting process of the glaciers thus raising possibilities for massive glacier outbursts. Let us not forget the tragedy triggered by the outburst of a very humble dam in Pasni, Balochistan during the recent rains.

But when it comes to planning sensitive issues like water, one can expect anything from the desperate souls in Islamabad. In 2001 for instance, a Food Minister from Sindh made an even more foolish proposal. He called for the bombing of Baltoro and Hisper glaciers to overcome the water shortage downstream; some federal ministries went actually passed the proposal to the ministry of science and technology for comments, which in turn shared the ideas with the country's famous nuclear scientists. It was only after a spontaneous backlash of the Northern Area's media and civil society groups that the proposal was shelved. It would have been like killing the chicken that lays golden eggs.

Skardu valley is the gateway to most of the famous mountaineering expeditions to central Karakoram --home to K2 -- second highest point on Earth, known among mountaineers around the world as the 'throne room of the mountain gods'. In the late 1990s UNESCO considered including the area in the World Heritage Site (WHS) list, but this was deferred due to Indian objections citing the disputed nature of the territory! This would have been the first natural heritage from Pakistan in the prestigious list; the WHS list includes natural sites located in India and Nepal.

If Islamabad has a hard time selling the idea of Kalabagh and Bhasha dams to a national audience, think of the Indian reaction and the global feedback that a proposal about submerging Skardu could provoke. Senator A.N.G. Abbassi's recommendations (reported on Feb 19, 2005) seek the reactivation of the Council of Common Interest (CCI), which is a constitutional forum to decide inter-provincial disputes. However, Northern Areas is neither a province of Pakistan, nor part of the CCI; it has no representation in the Senate, or the National Assembly or the assemblies of divided Kashmir in the name of which the Northern Areas status has been kept in limbo for the last 57 years.

Since Northern Areas are not a federating unit, we will have to wait and see on what constitutional and moral grounds do ANG Abbassi and his colleagues in Senate and the so-called CCI stand on the Skardu dam? Have they consulted people in the Northern Areas on the issue, they are definitely equipped to bulldoze and subdue the already poor and marginalised Baltis in Skardu, but I wonder if they have the mettle to go against the common sense, against nature, against the world and more importantly against Pakistan's own strategic interest?

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/mar2005-daily/16-03-2005/oped/o3.htm

Forget dams, nuclear power is the way to go.

Efforts stressed to evolve consensus: Govt not focused on Kalabagh dam: Aziz

By Ismail Khan

PESHAWAR, Dec 24: Calling for a national debate on the need of water reservoirs in the country, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Saturday warned that time was running out and doing nothing was not an option.

“Time is running out. Doing nothing is not an option. We need to galvanize our efforts to evolve consensus. We all are Pakistanis and any decision to be taken would be in the best national interest,” he told a press conference at the end of his day-long visit to Peshawar.

Mr Aziz had had a meeting with NWFP Chief Minister Akram Durrani and Governor Khalilur Rehman and also attended a meeting of the provincial cabinet.

The prime minister dispelled the impression that the government had made up its mind on the construction of Kalabagh dam, when a reporter drew his attention to statements by President Gen Pervez Musharraf advocating for Kalabagh dam.

“Everybody should express his views. This is the essence of democracy. There should be debate and consensus. The president has been talking about water reservoirs and Kalabagh is one option,” he said.

A cabinet member said the prime minister spoke in general terms about the need for the construction of water reservoirs in the country without being specific about any dam. “He was not particular about Kalabagh dam. He was sort of non-committal,” the minister told Dawn.

Prime Minister Aziz said he had offered to send a team of experts from the federal government to sit and discuss with the NWFP government and brief it on different options available. “Ask them any question you want,” he was quoted as telling Mr Durrani and his cabinet.

Appreciating the offer, the chief minister said his government had drawn a report on the controversial dam and would like to discuss the project with experts from the federal government.

Mr Aziz said that Pakistan presently faced 9 Million Acre Feet (MAF) water shortage, which would increase to 30MAF in 2025.

He said that sedimentation of existing dams was also contributing to water shortage, adding that by 2010 6MAF less water would be available because of silting alone. He pointed out that Pakistan had the potential to cultivate 77 million acres, but could cultivate only 44 million acres due to water shortage.
He promised to make public all reports, including the report of the technical committee headed by A.N.G Abbasi that has declared Skardu-Katzarah as the best option followed by Bhasha dam.

He said that reports of the parliamentary committee on water reservoirs and downstream Kotri Barrage would also be made public to help initiate public debate and evolve consensus on the issue.

Mr Aziz said that the issue would also be debated in parliament and a decision would be taken in the best national interest.

He referred to a report on global warming and its effects on Pakistan by renowned scientist Dr Ishfaq and said that the country needed to build water storages to cope with floods caused by melting glaciers. “The report is quite troublesome.”

On the president’s statement that construction of new dams and the National Finance Commission Award would be announced together, Mr Aziz said that provincial governments had authorized the president to make the announcement after failing to reach consensus on the issue.

Mr Aziz said that the federal government had included development projects worth Rs16.6 billion for the NWFP in the next Public Sector Development Programme, including funds for Lowari Tunnel, Gomal Zam dam, Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway and Peshawar Bypass and Peshawar-Torkham Expressway.

He said the federal government was setting up laboratories all over the country to check potable water on a three-month basis to ensure the provision of clean drinking water to people and control water-born diseases, including hepatitis.

APP adds: Addressing a meeting of MNAs, senators, MPAs and office-bearers of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, district nazims and tribal elders, the prime minister asked how an elected government could go against the interest of the country and said that every decision of the government would be in the larger interest of the people and the state.

He asked the PML leaders to chalk out a strategy to mould public opinion in favour of big water reservoirs to ensure sustainable development of the economy.

The prime minister said that various options were currently under consideration, including Kalabagh, Bhasha, Skardu, Akhori, Kurram Tangi and Munda, to meet the water shortfall which the country might face in a couple of years.

Every year, he said, 30-32MAF water fell into the sea as the country had no reservoirs to store it.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/25/top2.htm

Kalabagh dam’s life less than 15 years: expert

By Our Staff Reporter

ISLAMABAD, Dec 24: Former chairman of the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) Engineer Fatehullah Khan Gandapur has said the life of the proposed Kalabagh dam will be less than 15 years and it will not play any part in improving the country’s agricultural production. (Irresponsible statement cause he did not quote any study or report in his favor. When you make such statements, you need to quote a study or some report to be credible)

The former Irsa chief was speaking at a briefing on the Kalabagh dam project for the local leadership of the People’s Party Parliamentarians at the party’s central secretariat here on Saturday, says a press release.

Mr Gandapur said international experts had already rejected the project. He said the dam would be detrimental to the interests of smaller provinces. There are several alternative projects available which should be explored, he added.

Speaking on the occasion, PPP President Makhdoom Amin Fahim said Kalabagh dam project was a conspiracy against the federation and an effort to create hatred against Punjab. “This is a play to hide government’s failure at every level,” he added.

The briefing was attended by MNAs Zamarud Khan, Fauzia Habib and Nayyar Bokhari, MPA Amir Fida Piracha and party leaders Agha Riazul Islam, Syed Abrar Rizvi, Nargis Faiz Malik, Sardar Salim and others.

The meeting passed resolutions demanding that the government should shelve the project and consider alternative projects.

The PPP leaders expressed their resolve to resist Kalabagh dam at any cost and to pay sacrifices for the rights of the people.

Meanwhile, PPP spokesman Senator Farhatullah Babar in a statement said the assertion that Benazir Bhutto had ever supported the Kalabagh dam was totally wrong.

He said the fact was that there was a proposal by certain elements about an Indus dam. “This was dismissed by the PPP government when it was found that it was nothing but the Kalabagh dam renamed,” he said.

Moreover, he said, no presentation was made to the then prime minister, Ms Bhutto, demonstrating that building a dam at Kalabagh was technically feasible.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/25/nat9.htm

Kalabagh in country’s interest, says Jamali

Dera Murad Jamali, Dec 24: Former prime minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali on Saturday said that the construction of Kalabagh dam was in the interest of the national economy and the issue should not be politicized. Talking to a TV channel, Mr Jamali said he would support every step which would be in favour of Pakistan. The country, he emphasized, needed water reservoirs, including the Kalabagh dam.

In reply to a question, he said consensus on Kalabagh dam was required as the issue was being politicized.

“We are supporting the construction of Kalabagh dam since 1985 in order to cope with up water shortage in the country,” he added.—PPI

http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/25/nat10.htm

‘Dam issue a conspiracy against Musharraf’

By Our Staff Reporter

LAHORE, Dec 24: Exiled MQM leader Altaf Husain says raising of the Kalabagh Dam issue at this time is a conspiracy against Gen Musharraf. He was speaking to reporters by phone from London on the inauguration of party’s provincial office here on Saturday.

MQM deputy parliamentary leader Dr Farooq Sattar, federal minister Syed Safwanullah, Omar Draz and other leaders were also present.

Mr Husain said he would stand by the general on the issue only if he managed to get the three provinces agreed on the project, wondering why the ruler in Islamabad was so resolute on the subject.

He saw a few generals and big landowners in Punjab behind the “conspiracy” against Gen Musharraf who, he said, must understand it and should not follow their advice.

He alleged that prominent Sindhi leader Pir Pagaro was on the payroll of the government and that’s why he was supporting the project.

He said all the projects were part of Pakistan and no step should be taken without taking them into confidence.

He alleged that a right wing students organization forced him to give up his studies and he formed a body to counter them.

He said feudal lords were befooling Punjabis and they would never allow the poor of this province to express their opinion independently.

The MQM leader denied that he or his organization was involved in the Jinahpur conspiracy. He alleged that one Brig Asif Haroon had fabricated the story and prepared bogus maps of the so-called independent state.

He said he was ready to accept death penalty if his assertion proved as wrong.

He announced that he would not accept any higher office even if his party came into power.

Urging Punjabis not to befooled in the name of Islam, Mr Husain said he was a friend of Punjab and “a friend is he who points out mistakes of his friend.”


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/25/nat16.htm

Civil groups criticize dam plan

Bureau Report

PESHAWAR, Dec 24: Teachers, students, doctors and political organizations have rejected the Kalabagh dam plan and termed it an organized destruction of the Pukhtun nation. (oh sure!) In separate meetings held here on Saturday, they called upon the people to shun their petty differences and forge unity against the construction of controversial dam.

A meeting of Malgari Ustadhan, presided over by its president Islamuddin Khan, was held at the Bacha Khan Markaz. A resolution was adopted against the Kalabagh dam.

Awami National Party provincial general secretary Mian Iftikhar Hussain, vice-president Imran Khan Afridi, information secretary Syed Aqil Shah and other ANP leaders attend the meeting.

Mian Iftikhar urged his party workers to take part in the anti-Kalabagh dam rally on Dec 29 in Jehangira.

A meeting of the Malgari Doctrans, presided over by its president Dr Mohammad Salim, denounced the construction of the controversial dam and decided to attend the anti-dam rally. A medical camp would be set up on the day to provide treatment to the people.

The Pukhtun Students Federation and People’s Students Federation announced that their workers would attend the rally.

The Pukhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party has asked its workers to attend the anti-Kalabagh dam rally and express solidarity with the nation.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/25/nat23.htm

This is sad...

People of Sindh...really there are no words to describe those people. I have never met such immature whinners in my life. "Punjab is going to take all the water". That's been there argument all this time. Prove it...the government has PROOF Sindh will have the advantage and they still cry!

In NWFP some retarded mullah said the dam will flood Peshawar...a city almost 2 hours away from the Indus River. HOW? It's barely going to affect Nowshera how in the world is it going to affect Peshawar?

Seriously...even I have my bad points about the damn but making up crap like that it shows just exactly why this damn SHOULD be built. I've even read Punjab is ready not even take anything from the dam and that Sindh and NWFP will get all the advantages. NWFP looks like it will sign onto the government...seems like they've gotton some sense knocked into them.

Sindh is just a mystery...I am so angry at these people it's not even funny!

Kalabagh Dam should be built...look at the advantages it will have. Forget Punjab...look at how it will help NWFP and Sindh. I really think the media should play it's role in educating the masses that the dam is good! Oh yeah one local paper did in Hyderabad...and those bloody MQM idiots decided to level the HQ's the next day. It proves the dam is good...and the parties are trying to keep people stupid so they believe them.

God I never really understood the education system in Pakistan...Aga Khan hurry up and buy the Education Ministry...now! I'm begging you...one board...one curriculum...maybe under one system people can actually get a quality eduaction. Notice how all the educated people are for the dam; these mullahs want to keep people stupid so they have power over them...that's why do many farmers are against the dam. Ask them why...they really don't have an answer...

*Sigh*

Shahbaz Sharif terms Kalabagh Dam as need of country
NEW JERSEY: Former Chief Minister of Punjab Mian Shahbaz Sharif has backed the construction of Kalabagh Dam.

In his telephonic address in a function organized to celebrate Mian Nawaz Sharif’s birthday, Shahbaz said that country needs more water reservoirs and Kalabagh Dam should be build on immediate basis. Some parties politicize the issue, which is wrong, he added.

Former Chief Minister Punjab urged consensus on the issue. He stated that Mian Nawaz Sharif also is in favour of construction of Kalabagh Dam.

SOURCE (http://www.geo.tv/geonews/details.asp?id=99776)

Why cant we have more atomic power plants? instead of all the "DAMS"

Why cant we have more atomic power plants? instead of all the "DAMS"

Because you cannot drink the atomic waste water.

By Ayaz Amir

BEAUTIFUL Punjab, fair land of the five immortal rivers (three of them since gifted by a military ruler to India), why, when so generous of heart, do you prove time and again so weak of understanding?

When you have so much to offer why are you so poorly served by those who claim to lead you? What vengeful fate brings you the poisoned gift of third-rate leadership?

Land of Waris Shah and Shah Hussain (their memories hallowed till the end of time), why, unwittingly, do you end up stoking burning resentment when, with all your heaven-bestowed advantages, you should be spreading tenderness and love?

Of all the lands which came together to form Pakistan, why must you always be the first to welcome every man on horseback who contrives to turn the country (not a small one, mind you) into an instrument of his will and pleasure?

You have the gift of enterprise and industry. There’s no corner of the world where the Punjabi has not ventured or is not to be found. Why did your good fairies deprive you of the ability to differentiate right from wrong and stand up for the right?

When East Pakistan bled you kept quiet. Indeed, to your lasting shame, you sided with the forces of oppression. When there was a movement in rural Sindh against the excesses of the Zia regime (1983), you made token noises of support but kept largely to yourself. Baloch gas lights your kitchen fires and keeps you warm in winter. Yet when Balochistan bled (1973-75) you were indifferent to its fate. When again the sounds of conflict are coming from that quarter you are silent.

Your capital, Lahore, was one of the great cities of the Mughal Empire, one of the great north Indian cities even under British rule, its cultural life more vibrant than anything to be seen in Delhi. Lahore, if true to its historic greatness, should have been Pakistan’s new frontier, fermenting-ground of new ideas. It has been just the opposite, the crucible of a narrow ideology. Of what good this ideology has been to Punjab it is hard to say. But for the rest of Pakistan it has been a permanent headache.

So no surprises when we consider that all the obscurantist winds to blow across the national landscape these past 50 odd years have arisen, in the first instance, from Punjab. In the light of this history it is at times hard to remember that this is the land of Waris Shah and Shah Hussain. Where Punjab should be Pakistan’s greatest unifying force, through generosity and wisdom the magnet drawing every other province to itself, the history of the last fifty years emphasizes its power to repel rather than attract.

Economic factors have brought the Frontier province closer to Punjab, in the process eliminating the more virulent manifestations of Pakhtoon nationalism. This is one of the good things to have happened since 1947. But the same cannot be said of Sindh and Balochistan where a sullen mood prevails. Lessening this mood of alienation should have been one of our foremost national priorities. Instead, six years of military rule have only made it worse.

As if that wasn’t enough, Islamabad’s sense of timing is always calculated to leave one speechless with amazement. When does Gen Musharraf choose to stoke up the embers of the Kalabagh controversy? Smack in December, the very month when Pakistan was dismembered 34 years ago. When do army helicopter gunships re-enact old scenes of strife and conflict in Balochistan? Again in December. No one can fault Islamabad with having a sense of history.

The general’s latest take on the situation is that he won’t allow Sindh to commit suicide. The people of Sindh should be grateful. Instead, they are likely to be alarmed out of their senses by this sweeping generosity. You can’t blame them. Many times bitten, they have ample reason to be constantly shy and cynical.

Islamabad and its chosen minions — like the information minister Shaikh Rashid and the parliamentary affairs minister, the one and only Sher Afgan — are injecting a lot of hot air into the atmosphere. We know what their priority is: playing to the president’s ear. If today the president were to say that for the sake of national unity he must also become chief justice of Pakistan, these same spokesmen will say wah, wah and applaud his wisdom.

We need an informed debate, not needless bluster. In all the heat generated by the Kalabagh controversy no one has been able to answer Sindh’s fears that the proposed Kalabagh dam will deprive it of its share of water from the Indus, its only lifeline.

Punjab has two rivers, Jhelum and Chenab, for its exclusive use while through the Indus Basin Treaty system of canals it also draws its share of water from the Indus. Sindh only has the Indus, no other river. When Gen Musharraf or the Water and Power Authority (Wapda) say that unless large water reservoirs are built, Pakistan will face drought-like conditions in the next ten years or so, the obvious implication is that water stored at Kalabagh, besides generating power, will also be used for irrigation purposes.

Well, let’s do a bit of map-reading. Kalabagh is in the upper reaches of Punjab. A right bank canal from there will benefit the Frontier (its southern districts). A left bank canal can only benefit Punjab. In any case, water drawn from Kalabagh for irrigation will mean lesser water flowing down the Indus. Which is precisely Sindh’s point that, as it is, there is less water in the Indus and if more is taken away, Sindh will be left with even less, thus violating its rights as the lower riparian with first call on the waters of the Indus.

With these facts stacked on one side it strains the imagination to believe, as the federal government desperately wants everyone in Pakistan to believe, that Sindh will benefit the most from the Kalabagh dam. The sums just don’t add up.

No one defies authority readily in Pakistan. We are just not made that way. So we in Punjab and Islamabad — Islamabad being Punjab in distilled form — should pause and ponder why everyone in Sindh, from the ruling coalition to the PPP to the MQM and even the Pir of Pagara, the quintessential establishment man, is opposed to the Kalabagh dam. Either the whole of Sindh has gone mad, in which case Gen Musharraf before attempting to save Sindh from committing suicide should provide it with urgent psychiatric help, or the centre must re-examine its assumptions.

Punjab likes to think of itself as the big brother of the Pakistan federation. By virtue of population and productivity it is. By virtue of any wisdom or large-heartedness at its command it is not. If Punjab really is big brother, it shouldn’t leave Sindh alone in its hour of distress. Rather than let Sindh cry itself hoarse over Kalabagh, Punjab should be voicing Sindh’s agony, Punjab which should be confronting the centre on this issue.

Indeed, Punjab should go a step further and say: enough of these games, enough of divisions fanned in the name of fake, spurious ideologies. We tried to keep the federation together by force in 1971 and look what happened. We should learn something from our reverses instead of making a habit of repeating them. Haven’t we suffered enough because of foolish policies in the past?

With the army stretched to the full in both Waziristans, a full-fledged military operation underway in the Kohlu area of Balochistan, never-ending curfews in Gilgit, the stupendous task of quake relief and rehabilitation still only half-begun, you would think this was not the time to open new fronts.

And certainly not the time to remain committed to building a huge new behemoth of an army headquarters (GHQ) in Islamabad; buy early-warning aircraft from Sweden; and go ahead with the purchase of two luxury aircraft for the prime minister’s travelling. A Senate committee had earlier voted against this last piece of foolishness. Lo and behold, under pressure from only God knows who, it has reversed its decision and re-voted in favour of the luxury jets. Obviously, there’s no early end in sight to the follies generated regularly in Islamabad.

These are the wages of tiredness. After six years and some more in the saddle, all the signs suggest that the present dispensation has overshot its script and has nothing more to say. So how does it justify its quest for longevity? Which probably explains why a controversy we might have been forgiven for thinking was dead and buried, has been revived as a national rallying cry.

Source: Dawn Online Edition December 23, 2005

P.S: I have stopped arguing and participating in the discussions here due to the lack of rational people. I still frequent this forum because of the few rational & mature people we have. Keep it up Swerv! So I would just like to contribute this article, enlighten yourselves. Mind you the writer is a Punjabi.

This is sad...

People of Sindh...really there are no words to describe those people. I have never met such immature whinners in my life. "Punjab is going to take all the water". That's been there argument all this time. Prove it...the government has PROOF Sindh will have the advantage and they still cry!

In NWFP some retarded mullah said the dam will flood Peshawar...a city almost 2 hours away from the Indus River. HOW? It's barely going to affect Nowshera how in the world is it going to affect Peshawar?

Seriously...even I have my bad points about the damn but making up crap like that it shows just exactly why this damn SHOULD be built. I've even read Punjab is ready not even take anything from the dam and that Sindh and NWFP will get all the advantages. NWFP looks like it will sign onto the government...seems like they've gotton some sense knocked into them.

Sindh is just a mystery...I am so angry at these people it's not even funny!

Kalabagh Dam should be built...look at the advantages it will have. Forget Punjab...look at how it will help NWFP and Sindh. I really think the media should play it's role in educating the masses that the dam is good! Oh yeah one local paper did in Hyderabad...and those bloody MQM idiots decided to level the HQ's the next day. It proves the dam is good...and the parties are trying to keep people stupid so they believe them.

God I never really understood the education system in Pakistan...Aga Khan hurry up and buy the Education Ministry...now! I'm begging you...one board...one curriculum...maybe under one system people can actually get a quality eduaction. Notice how all the educated people are for the dam; these mullahs want to keep people stupid so they have power over them...that's why do many farmers are against the dam. Ask them why...they really don't have an answer...

*Sigh*


An example of a typical ignorant Punjabi who thinks civilization ends in Punjab. Plight of the nation. Seriously.

By Ayaz Amir

We need an informed debate, not needless bluster. In all the heat generated by the Kalabagh controversy no one has been able to answer Sindh’s fears that the proposed Kalabagh dam will deprive it of its share of water from the Indus, its only lifeline.

Punjab has two rivers, Jhelum and Chenab, for its exclusive use while through the Indus Basin Treaty system of canals it also draws its share of water from the Indus. Sindh only has the Indus, no other river. When Gen Musharraf or the Water and Power Authority (Wapda) say that unless large water reservoirs are built, Pakistan will face drought-like conditions in the next ten years or so, the obvious implication is that water stored at Kalabagh, besides generating power, will also be used for irrigation purposes.

Well, let’s do a bit of map-reading. Kalabagh is in the upper reaches of Punjab. A right bank canal from there will benefit the Frontier (its southern districts). A left bank canal can only benefit Punjab. In any case, water drawn from Kalabagh for irrigation will mean lesser water flowing down the Indus. Which is precisely Sindh’s point that, as it is, there is less water in the Indus and if more is taken away, Sindh will be left with even less, thus violating its rights as the lower riparian with first call on the waters of the Indus.

With these facts stacked on one side it strains the imagination to believe, as the federal government desperately wants everyone in Pakistan to believe, that Sindh will benefit the most from the Kalabagh dam. The sums just don’t add up.

No one defies authority readily in Pakistan. We are just not made that way. So we in Punjab and Islamabad — Islamabad being Punjab in distilled form — should pause and ponder why everyone in Sindh, from the ruling coalition to the PPP to the MQM and even the Pir of Pagara, the quintessential establishment man, is opposed to the Kalabagh dam. Either the whole of Sindh has gone mad, in which case Gen Musharraf before attempting to save Sindh from committing suicide should provide it with urgent psychiatric help, or the centre must re-examine its assumptions.

Punjab likes to think of itself as the big brother of the Pakistan federation. By virtue of population and productivity it is. By virtue of any wisdom or large-heartedness at its command it is not. If Punjab really is big brother, it shouldn’t leave Sindh alone in its hour of distress. Rather than let Sindh cry itself hoarse over Kalabagh, Punjab should be voicing Sindh’s agony, Punjab which should be confronting the centre on this issue.

Indeed, Punjab should go a step further and say: enough of these games, enough of divisions fanned in the name of fake, spurious ideologies. We tried to keep the federation together by force in 1971 and look what happened. We should learn something from our reverses instead of making a habit of repeating them. Haven’t we suffered enough because of foolish policies in the past?

With the army stretched to the full in both Waziristans, a full-fledged military operation underway in the Kohlu area of Balochistan, never-ending curfews in Gilgit, the stupendous task of quake relief and rehabilitation still only half-begun, you would think this was not the time to open new fronts.

And certainly not the time to remain committed to building a huge new behemoth of an army headquarters (GHQ) in Islamabad; buy early-warning aircraft from Sweden; and go ahead with the purchase of two luxury aircraft for the prime minister’s travelling. A Senate committee had earlier voted against this last piece of foolishness. Lo and behold, under pressure from only God knows who, it has reversed its decision and re-voted in favour of the luxury jets. Obviously, there’s no early end in sight to the follies generated regularly in Islamabad.

These are the wages of tiredness. After six years and some more in the saddle, all the signs suggest that the present dispensation has overshot its script and has nothing more to say. So how does it justify its quest for longevity? Which probably explains why a controversy we might have been forgiven for thinking was dead and buried, has been revived as a national rallying cry.

Source: Dawn Online Edition December 23, 2005




Right now I am kinda undecided about the Dam issue, but people like cntower might just turn me into siding with Sindh, which has a perfectly valid argument.

On another note, today broke all record books.

12+ articles on the Dam issue in a single edition of DAWN!

I m gonna start posting away.

Students to hold demos against Kalabagh dam

By Our Correspondent

PESHAWAR, Dec 26: The Pakhtunkhwa Students Organisation (PSO) will hold countrywide demonstrations against the construction of Kalabagh dam. PSO’s central secretary general Hameed Ali Shah made this announcement at a press conference here on Monday.

He said that students would also participate in the December 29 rally arranged by the Awami National Party.

He claimed that dozens of alternatives to Kalabagh were available but they were not being examined because “they were not likely to bring water of the Abbasin (Indus river) under the direct control of the Punjab”, he said, adding that Kalabagh dam was not meant to be a reservoir but a project to control the flow of the Indus.

Fayaz Bacha, an office bearer of the PSO, said 1971-like situation was being created wilfully to divert attention of the masses from issues like military operations in different parts of the country.

He said that the president need not take pains of elaborating pros and cons of the controversial project because people of the NWFP and Sindh knew what was beneficial for them.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/27/nat33.htm

Reservoirs in national interest: Pervaiz

By Our Staff Reporter

LAHORE, Dec 26: Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi says construction of big water reservoirs is in the best national interest and not any single province.

Talking to reporters after opening a new hostel at the Lahore Gymkhana on Monday, the chief minister said reservations of political elements of other provinces regarding construction of reservoirs were being removed.

He said Punjab had always given priority to national prestige in every matter, and never thought in regional terms. The fact that it helped politicians from other provinces to lay claim to the office of prime minister was sufficient to prove the assertion, he said.

However, he regretted that the politicians who declared their parties national were talking in regional terms in various provinces.

He recalled that such situation had been created by certain elements when work on Mangla and Tarbela dams was executed, but the projects were now meeting irrigation and power needs of the country.

He said if new dams were not constructed, lands of Punjab, Sindh and other areas would be rendered as barren.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/27/nat12.htm

President has own interest in dam issue, says Tarar

By Our Staff Reporter

LAHORE, Dec 26: Former president Rafiq Tarar alleged that Gen Musharraf has raised Kalabagh dam issue to prolong his “illegal” stay in presidency. He was speaking at a ceremony organized by PML-N MPA Chaudhry Abdul Ghafoor at Raiwind here on Monday.

Party’s central Secretary-General Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, Finance Secretary MNA Pervaiz Malick, Zaeem Qadri, Saad Rafiq and others also spoke.

Tarar said there were many issues of public welfare which were more important than the dam and needed to be addressed on priority basis. He added stress should not be laid on the project which did not enjoy consensus of all provinces.

He said present national scenario demanded restoration of democracy in real terms.

Mr Jhagra said his party did not accept Gen Musharraf as constitutional head of state while democracy and the parliament also did not exist in the country.
Malick said politicians were responsible for running political affairs of the country and not the army generals. He termed the dam lifeline of the country but said the project could not be executed by Gen Musharraf for “people do not trust him.”

Qadri said the party would demonstrate outside the Lahore Press Club on Wednesday (Dec 28) against army operation in Balochistan.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/27/nat11.htm

TI asks Musharraf to invite Pagara for KBD opening

By Our Staff Reporter

LAHORE, Dec 26: The Tehrik-i-Istaqlal, one of the staunch supporters of the Kalabagh dam, has suggested President Gen Musharraf to invite PML (Functional) chief Pir Pagaro for laying the foundation-stone of the reservoir.

In a communique to Gen Musharraf, party president Rehmat Khan Wardag hoped the Pir would accept the offer and it would be a great step for quelling opposition to the project in Sindh.

He also urged the army ruler to invite Mir Zafarullah Jamali for a one-on-one meeting to seek the former prime minister’s formal support for the water reservoir.

He believed that Balochs could be convinced to give up opposition by offering their province two or three per cent more share in the Indus waters.

Referring to an anti-dam rally in Karachi last week, he alleged that most of the participants were the poor “hired” for the event who had no affiliations with any political party. (one rule: dont make statements you have no prrof of. That just makes the game more dirty)

He proposed announcement of construction of four small dams while laying foundation-stone of the Kalabagh.

The suitable sites for these proposed reservoirs, according to him, are Munda on the Swat river, and Rahim Yar Khan, Khairpur Meerus and Sehwan Sharif on the Indus.

Khan favoured building of left canal from the Kalabagh dam to irrigate thousands of acres in Dera Ismail Khan, Tonk, Lakki Marwat, Bannu and Kark, the most backward area of the NWFP whose people migrate to other provinces for earning their livelihood.

About the proposed constitutional and legal guarantees for the dam, he said it was a time-consuming process which could be undertaken even after work on Kalabagh was started. (sure sure, get everyone fu*ked up first, then think of the legalities. Typical Pakistani politician)


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/27/nat10.htm

Govt advised to take up Bhasha dam

By Our Correspondent

SWABI, Dec 26: The government should focus on the construction of non-controversial Bhasha dam instead of the controversial Kalabagh dam and take steps which create unity among the people of four provinces. This was stated by leaders of political parties opposed to the construction of Kalabagh dam on Monday.

Former MNA and district president of Awami National Party Rehmanullah said that his party had already made it clear that the construction of Kalabagh was against the interest of three provinces and Balochistan, Sindh and the NWFP Assemblies had already passed anti-Kalabagh resolutions. The ANP’s parliamentary leaders would tender resignations if the government stuck to its guns and went ahead with the project, said Rehmanullah whose son is also an MPA.

He said his party wanted progress and prosperity of the country but not at the cost of the people. “The ANP has prepared a plan for holding anti-Kalabagh rally on Dec 29,” he added.

ANP leader and former district nazim Jehanzeb Khan said that previous governments had also made noises about building the Kalabagh dam but their efforts met with failure. A provincial leader of Pukhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party Arshad Ali advocate said that all the communities in Sindh, Balochistan and the NWFP would suffer harm by the Kalabagh dam which would only benefit the people of Punjab.

“This project would bring together the people and leaders of various political parties on one platform and they would oppose its construction tooth and nail.”

Former provincial information secretary of Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf Asad Qaisar said it seemed that the government wanted to use the Punjab card while influencing the mind of the people of Punjab and preparing the ground for the next general election.

He said it was a political game and the government had a future plan for strengthening its hold on power.



http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/27/nat9.htm

Media told to play role on dams issue

RAWALPINDI, Dec 26: Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said on Monday that President General Pervez Musharraf had directed the media to play an active role in creating public awareness about constructing Kalabagh dam and other water reservoirs.

Sheikh Rashid told newsmen here that Sindh Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim Khan, Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervez Elahi and federal Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao and other officials attended an important meeting with President General Pervez Musharraf about establishment of Kalabagh dam and various reservoirs in the country.

The meeting lasted for more than three hours and important issues were thoroughly discussed in the meeting.

The information minister said the president had stressed the need for the media to be active and play its role in creating public awareness regarding construction of Kalabagh dam and other water reservoirs in the country.

He said that President Musharraf would soon visit Nawabshah, Mirpurkhas and NWFP and announce the construction of Kalabagh dam very soon.

He said that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has said from time to time that the government would not take any unilateral decision on the construction of big water reservoirs in the country and would certainly take the provinces into confidence first.
Sheikh Rashid said it was fortunate that there were no problems in provision of funds for development from either the federal government or provincial governments.

He said in the presence of Provincial Minister Muhammad Basharat Raja, Rahat Qadoosi, Nasir Raja and MPA Fayaz Chauhan and other high-ups that development projects would be completed —Online


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/27/nat4.htm

Demand to shelve Kalabagh project

Dawn Report

DADU, Dec 26: A large number of people took out a procession and held a demonstration in Khairpur Nathan Shah on Monday in protest against the proposed construction of the Kalabagh dam.

The protesters included activists of different political parties and social workers. They were led by taluka People’s Party Parliamentarians president Noor Mohammad Chandio, district Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam president Hafiz Hajan and district Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan president Hafiz Amin.

The protesters demanded that President Gen Pervez Musharraf should shelve the Kalabagh dam project.

Later, they observed a token hunger strike.

NAUSHAHRO FEROZE: Workers of different political parties on Sunday marched from the Moro town to the Moro-Dadu bridge on the River Indus to protest against the Kalabagh dam.

Around 400 activists of the People’s Party Parliamentarians, Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz, Jeay Sindh Mahaz, Sindh Taraqqi Pasand Party, Sindh National Party, Awami Tehrik, Sindhi Adabi Sangat and the Labour Party of Pakistan participated in the protest.

The procession was led by Sindh LPP general secretary Younus Rahu, Hashim Khoso, poet Rashid Morai, Ali Bux Kalhoro, Agha Hassan, Khan Soomro, Ashraf Bhat, Razzaq Mastoi, Badal Zardari and Talib Rahu.

They said the Kalabagh dam was dangerous for Sindh and its people because they would be deprived of their livelihood after its construction. They warned that people of Sindh would not forgive supporters of the Kalabagh dam.

The PPP-SB also took out a procession in Kandiaro on Sunday against the dam project.

The protesters, led by district party president Zafar Khoso, after marching through different roads reached the Star Chowk where they staged a sit-in for one hour.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/27/nat3.htm

Fudged data being given to president, say experts: Kalabagh dam

By Our Reporter

ISLAMABAD, Dec 26: The Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) is providing fudged data to President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Kalabagh dam, that is technically, economically and politically unfeasible and poses a threat to the federation.

This was the near consensus of a seminar on “Kalabagh Dam: forcing or forging consensus” organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute here on Monday.

Engineer Imtiaz Ali Qazalbash said the dam would cost more than Rs800 billion despite the fact that it had a short life span of 20 to 30 years. He said there were many technical problems in the project, which would displace over 200,000 people in Punjab, NWFP and Sindh.

He said the government was hell-bent on the construction of the Kalabagh dam to the extent that it gave the impression as if there existed only one project. He said the people were being provided wrong information by the government that the dam would cost $6 to $7 billion.

He said the country had many other options for construction of major water reservoirs including Basha, Dasu and Bunji dams, etc.

He said Basha dam was the best option keeping in view its relatively longer life span and less economic cost.

He said according to the Wapda Vision 2025, the country needed water reservoirs but it did not mean that the solution was only Kalabagh dam. He said Wapda and the policy-makers should be a little bit innovative and explore some other options. He said since 1976 the country could not come up with major water reservoirs mainly due to sticking to the Kalabagh dam unnecessarily. He said the government should first construct less controversial dams.

Since 1977, he said, Wapda had ceased to play its role owing to which there was no balance in the thermal and hydro power generation.

Engineer Asif Ali Khan, member of the Pakistan Engineering Counsel, said Pakistan Muslim League was lobbying for a dam which was technically and economically not correct. He said Wapda was feeding fudged statistics to Gen Pervez Musharraf about the social, economic and technically repercussions of Kalabagh dam.

Citing reports of the World Bank and some other independent international consultants, Mr Khan said it would have not been a matter of great concern had the government tried to forge a consensus on the dam in case of some political hindrances. The dangerous thing is that besides technical and economic constraints the government is forcing a consensus.

He said Mardan and Nowshera would be flooded and the Peshawar valley would face water logging and siltation. He said the government was ignoring the public outcry about the project not only in NWFP but in other two provinces, which could create a 197-like scenario in the country.

He said the history of rehabilitation of people displaced due construction of dams and water canals in Pakistan showed that the government had failed to properly compensate and rehabilitate the affected people.

Besides, he said, after the refusal of the federal government to pay to the NWFP billions of rupees outstanding in the forms of electricity charges and usurping of other rights of the provinces the people were convinced that the Constitution was not everything in Pakistan.

He said the 1985 feasibility report on the Kalabagh dam had taken into account an earthquake of less than 4 on the Richter scale. (if thats the case, shelve the Dam NOW! Where is a new team of independent technical experts doing their reporting for all of us??)

http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/27/nat1.htm

Consensus must for Kalabagh: Shahbaz

By Arshad Sharif

London, Dec 26: Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) president Shahbaz Sharif on Monday emphasized the need for political consensus about the Kalabagh dam issue and said it could not be sustainable if it threatened the federation’s unity.

Talking to Dawn, the former Punjab chief minister said: “Without consensus, how can one think of going ahead with a controversial project?”

The PML-N president said Pakistan was a federation and all the four federating units had to be taken on board on the Kalabagh Dam issue.

Mr Shahbaz Sharif said he was convinced of Kalabagh dam’s feasibility. However, he said, during the past 25-30 years, the issue had been politicized to an extent that facts were buried.

“I am speaking as a Pakistani and not as a Punjabi. The Kalabagh dam is not an issue for Punjab alone, but for the entire Pakistan,” he said.

Mr Sharif said feasibilities of the Kalabagh dam would be of no use if they were not politically acceptable to the other federating units. If the federation’s unity was threatened, the rulers must find the solution through dialogue, he said.

In response to a question about the exact arrival date of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in London, the PML-N president said: “He would be here soon.”


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/27/top4.htm

Schedule on dams soon, says Musharraf: Guarantees on water outlets pledged

By Our Staff Reporter

ISLAMABAD, Dec 26: Sindh’s ruling party leadership on Monday advised President Gen Pervez Musharraf to rearrange priorities on the government’s dam construction plan by taking up Bhasha dam first and “a canal-less” Kalabagh dam later. (this actually might be a good way to go)

This advice was given at a meeting presided over by the president on water management.

President Gen Pervez Musharraf told participants that a schedule to construct three dams - Kalabagh, Bhasha and Akhori - by 2020 would be announced very shortly, for which priority had to be set now, to complete at least one dam by 2016, a participant of the meeting told Dawn.

On Monday, President Musharraf chaired two separate meetings on Water Management Vision in his Rawalpindi camp office. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, PML President Ch. Shujaat Hussain, Mushahid Hussain Syed, ministers for information, water and power, narcotics control, interior, local government, chief ministers of Sindh and Punjab, attorney general of Pakistan, special assistant to prime minister on youth affairs and Sindh minister for irrigation also attended.

In another meeting, Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Rahim, Water and Power Minister Liaquat Jatoi, Narcotics Control Minister Ghaus Bakhsh Mehr, Local Government Minister Abdul Razak Taheem and Sindh Irrigation Minister Nadir Kamal Leghari participated.

Sources said the president told participants that he was ready to provide “any constitutional and legal guarantee” and subsequently inquired about the kind of guarantee they required.

The Sindhi leadership recommended that no future dam or major irrigation project, including Bhasha or Kalabagh, should be taken in hand which contained any canal outlet. For this, they demanded a constitutional amendment through a two-thirds majority in the centre and a consensus legislation in Sindh Assembly that whenever Kalabagh dam is constructed, it would be without canals and such a design would be protected for all times to come.

A participant said Sindh representatives reiterated their demand to give up Kalabagh dam’s priority and take up Bhasha dam’s construction first and then move on to Kalabagh dam but without any canals and with a constitutional guarantee that its design would never be changed.

Informed sources said that PML secretary general Mushahid Hussain and the PM’s advisor on youth affairs, Mohammad Ali Durrani, also said that if consensus could not be achieved on Kalabagh dam, then priority should be given to Bhasha dam. Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao also supported construction of Bhasha dam on first priority.

Punjab Chief Minister Pervez Elahi, however, demanded that Kalabagh dam be constructed along with its necessary canals without delay.

The president assured participants that he would remove their reservations on construction of dams and National Finance Commission and he would visit NWFP and Balochistan in addition to revisiting Sindh again.

The crux of the position taken by Sindh ministers, according to a participant, is that they are not opposed to the construction of water reservoirs but construction of Bhasha dam before Kalabagh would ensure sufficient water supplies to Sindh and subsequently development of Kalabagh dam would become easier.

He said the Sindh chief minister and federal ministers from Sindh also opposed moves to refer the issue of construction of water reservoirs to the Supreme Court.

An official statement said the president shared his impressions on his recently concluded visits to Sukkur, Hyderabad and Karachi and said it helped to create awareness on the need for additional water reservoirs and clear perceptions.

The prime minister told the meeting that a report of the technical committee on water and recommendations of an international panel of experts on water escapages downstream Kotri would be released to the general public in the near future while the parliamentary committee’s report would be placed before the Senate.

He said a team of technical experts would brief provincial cabinets, coalition partners as well as opposition parties on the government’s water management strategy.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/27/top1.htm

Looking at all these reports, I think so far that if indeed Kalabagh Dam is built it should be canal-less. The government should focus on building Basha Dam at the moment and meanwhile try to develop a consesus on KBD as to which way to go. Another Bangladesh-type scenario needs to be avoided at all costs. And also, Punjabis need to be taught some more respect for the other provinces. I especially hated how Cheif Minister Punjab wants to rush the project without delay. Shows he might have some stake in it.

Disregard for resolutions negation of federation’

Bureau Report

HYDERABAD, Dec 26: The Sindhi Association of North America (Sana) has termed rejection of resolutions of three provincial assemblies by rulers against Kalabagh dam a clear negation of federation.

Speaking at a news conference at the press club here on Monday, Sana president Aziz Narejo said that during last five years, Sindh had witnessed water shortage ranging between 30 and 80 per cent.

“We have roots in Sindh and we cannot remain indifferent to a terrible predicament being faced by the people of Sindh”, Mr Narejo said.

He said democracy had been derailed in Pakistan and Doctrine of Necessity had superseded the Constitution of 1973.

He said constant interference by the centre in affairs of provinces had become a rule rather than an exception.

He said what Pakistan needed was an unfettered and uncontrolled democracy.

He said members of parliament and provincial assemblies should emulate Awami National Party and volunteer to quit their seats if any announcement about construction of Kalabagh dam was made.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/27/nat18.htm

ISLAMABAD, Dec 26: The Technical Committee on Water Resources (TCWR) has failed to reach a consensus on major irrigation issues, including construction of future dams and their sequencing, total water availability and filling criteria of dams.

“I apologize that a consensus could not be reached in the preparation of this report,” wrote TCWR’s Chairman A.N.G. Abbasi when he submitted the final report to President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in August this year. The committee would stand dissolved on Dec 31. The report was exclusively provided to Dawn by sources in the water and power ministry.

The committee asked the government to immediately start proceedings for signing of a water treaty with Afghanistan to protect Pakistan’s lower riparian rights as many international agencies were helping Afghanistan to construct dams on rivers flowing into Pakistan.

The nine-member committee seemed clearly divided over most of the issues. Seven members of the committee, comprising six members from Punjab, the NWFP and Balochistan and Dr Iqbal Ali from Sindh, adopted more or less a uniform set of arguments.

TCWR’s Chairman A.N.G. Abbasi and Sindh member Sardar Ahmad Mughal have taken a different stand on most of the issues, including computations about water availability, its utilisation by the provinces and future dams.

The group of seven members has adopted a Wapda estimate that Afghanistan could not use more than 500,000 acre feet of its water from rivers coming into Pakistan, while the chairman and Sindh member Sardar Ahmad Mughal questioned the estimate. Mr Mughal estimated that Afghanistan could use up to four million acre feet of water from Kabul river.

Similarly, the group of seven has estimated that India could be restricted to use only two MAF of western rivers for developing their remaining area. The chairman of the TCWR has termed it unrealistic and refered to presentation of Pakistan Commissioner for Indus Waters that listed violations by India of even the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960. By comparison, Sardar Mughal has put the figure at 4.8 MAF.

Notwithstanding, the difference of opinion among the members of the committee, most of them were unanimous about protecting the existing provincial water uses. The report presented a classic example of diverging views among the country’s irrigation experts and engineers on irrigation issues, including construction of future dams but could be used as one of the best reference books to understand water issues in the country.

The TCWR chairman also documented hurdles many quarters tried to create in preparation of the report that led to his tendering his resignation twice in the process. It is interesting to note that many members tried to persuade the chairman TCWR to present “a one-page report” in the very beginning of the proceedings of the report.

Major parties to attend anti-Kalabagh dam rally

By Our Correspondent

PESHAWAR, Dec 27: Various political parties and groups have assured their participation in the anti-Kalabagh rally of the Awami National Party at Jehangira, Nowshera, on December 29. This was stated by the ANP’s central vice president and chairman Anti-Kalabagh Front Ghulam Ahmed Bilour at a news conference in Peshawar Press Club on Tuesday.

He asked people from all walks of life to attend the rally to show their unity against a project which was aimed at destroying fertile lands of the province.

He said the Pakistan Peoples Party-Parliamentarian, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiat Ulema Islam-Fazal, PPP-Sherpao and various organisations of lawyers, doctors, engineers and students had ensured their participation in the rally.

He said Mehmood Khan Achakzai from Balochistan, Afzal Khan Lala, Rasool Bakhsh Paleejo, Qadir Magsi from Sindh, and other nationalist leaders would also address the rally.

He said that friends and advisors of General Musharraf were pushing him towards a point-of-no-return.

He said its was a technical as well as a political issue and the assemblies of the NWFP, Sindh and Balochistan had already rejected the project through their unanimous resolutions.

He said the first resolution against the Kalabagh dam was passed in 1985 by NWFP Assembly, the second in Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao’s tenure and the third in Mir Afzal Khan’s tenure. He said all the parties and independent MPAs had backed these resolutions.

Mr Bilour said his party was not against production of cheap electricity or big water reservoirs and time and again had proposed to successive governments to build non-controversial Basha, Katzara and other dams instead of Kalabagh dam which was supported only by the Punjab.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/28/nat41.htm

KARACHI: Sindh Bar rejects Kalabagh Dam plan


By Our Staff Reporter

KARACHI, Dec 27: The Sindh Bar Council on Tuesday warned against the construction of Kalabagh Dam. An SBC meeting, held at Garhi Yasin, Shikarpur, with the council’s Vice-Chairperson, Noor Naz Agha, in the chair, said the dam project was unfeasible ‘geologically, hydrologically and economically’. A resolution passed by the meeting said, inter alia:

“This meeting of the Sindh Bar Council views with deep concern the proposed construction of the Kalabagh Dam. The project has been vehemently opposed by the people of Sindh, Balochistan and the NWFP, and their representative assemblies have repeatedly adopted resolutions against it.

“The construction of the dam, in the opinion of the council, is not only against the interests of the people of the three smaller provinces, but also of the country at large. The controversial issue has been raised to divert public attention and divide the people.”

Advocates Aqil Lodhi, Abdus Sattar Kazi, Mohammad Aqil, Sher Mohammad Hassan, Mahmoodul Hasan, Shafi Mohammad Chandio, Ali Mohammad Dahiri, Muzaffar Leghari, Fazal Qadir Memon, Mohammad Siddique Khoso and Ayaz Soomro are among the signatories to the resolution.

BALOCHISTAN: By another resolution, the SBC condemned the military action at Kohlu and other areas of Balochistan. Aircraft and helicopter gun-ships, it deplored, were being used against the Marri tribesmen in Kohlu district. The council demanded an immediate halt to the operation.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/28/local3.htm

KARACHI: Pakistan or Kalabagh Dam? Fahim asks rulers


KARACHI, Dec 27: Chairman of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) and President of the Pakistan People’s Party-Parliamentarians Makhdoom Amin Fahim has said the rulers should now decide whether they want Pakistan or the Kalabagh Dam. “We will not accept constitutional guarantees from those who abrogate the constitution. The rulers are creating difficulties for the federation,” he said while talking to journalists at a wedding reception here on Monday night, adding that Gen Pervez Musharraf was not aware of facts.”

Makhdoom Fahim alleged that the country was being put at stake for the sake of irrigating 68,000 acres of land belonging to armed forces personnel in Cholistan.

In reply to a question, he said he respected PML-F chief Pir Pagara, but he the Hur leader should not support the scheme (Kalabagh dam) for the sake of irrigating his followers’ lands as this project was bound to turn Sindh into a desert.

Responding to another question, he maintained that he had seen Wapda reports which estimated the life span of Kalabagh Dam at 15-20 years, whereas that of Skardu Dam appeared to be 100 years. --PPI


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/28/local4.htm

I am becoming increasingly tired of these feudal's threatening to break Pakistan because of this damn. We should enact something like the alien and sedition act for all politicians.

Notice how its always the corrupt asswipes (who have been part of governments which were disposed for their corruption) who start honking their horns over such issues. Seriously I would rather listen to a retard than to pay any attention to what these low lifes have to say.

another day of sweet sweet news about the Kalabagh Dam. Seriously. More people need to keep their mouths shut so there arnt so many freaking news items about the issue in the newspaper! My nice lil fingers are starting to get tired of posting 20 articles a day...

Minister supports Bhasha dam

SHIKARPUR, Dec 28: Federal Minister for Narcotics Ghous Bux Mahar has said that Sindh has been deprived of its due share of water for years and added that a step-motherly treatment is being meted out to the province.

Talking to newsmen at a breakfast hosted by the District Nazim, Mohammad Arif Mahar, in honour of the newly-elected District Naib Nazim, Taqi Abbas Kamario, and members of the district council here at district council lawn on Wednesday, he said that Sindh was an agricultural-based province and its 70 per cent population earned its livelihood through this sector, which could be possible only if their lands were given proper water.

To a question, the minister supported the construction of Bhasha dam on the condition of handing over its control to Sindh and addressing the grievances of the province.

He demanded that the agreement be reached to the the satisfaction of the people of Sindh.

He opposed the construction of any barrage or canal on the left bank of Indus River.—Correspondent


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/29/nat34.htm

Protest against Kalabagh dam

Dawn Report

HYDERABAD, Dec 28: Activists of the Sindh National Party held a protest demonstration outside the press club here on Wednesday against the Kalabagh dam and the military operation in Balochistan.

Speaking on the occasion, they criticized the Balochistan operation and the Kalabagh project. They claimed that even the common man of Punjab was against the Kalabagh dam.

They demanded that Kalabagh dam and greater Thal canal projects should be shelved, operation in Balochistan should be ended, Khokhrapar route should not be opened, provinces should be given provincial autonomy in accordance with the 1940 Resolution and JSMM leaders and other political activists should be released. :lol: (talk about losing focus here!)

Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz activists also held a demonstration outside the press club against the military operation in Balochistan and continued detention of party leaders.

The protesters, including women and children, raised slogans against the operation in Balochistan and the alleged crackdown on party activists. They also carried banners against the Kalabagh dam.

Speaking on the occasion, Shahnawaz Bhutto, Asif Bhutto and others said whereabouts of JSMM leaders Muzaffar Bhutto, Sattar Hakro, Ahmad Khan Keerio, Zulfiqar Khaskheli and Mehran Mallah arrested 80 days ago were not known.

They condemned the operation in Balochistan and expressed solidarity with the people of the province.

They appealed to leaders of nationalist parties and human rights organizations to save lives of the JSMM leaders who were being held incommunicado.

NAWABSHAH: Activists of the Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz and the Jeay Sindh Students Federation took out a procession against the Kalabagh dam here on Wednesday.

The procession started from the Quaid-i-Awam University and terminated outside the press club.

The protesters said people of Sindh had rejected the Kalabagh dam and those supporting the project were traitors.

They appreciated the decision of journalists who quit their newspaper favouring the Kalabagh dam.

They said they would continue their peaceful struggle for rights of Sindh.

KHAIRPUR: The Jeay Sindh Students Federation and the Sindhi Adabi Sangat of the Shah Abdul Latif University took out a procession here on Wednesday against the proposed construction of the Kalabagh dam and the army operation in Balochistan.

The procession started from the National Highway and after marching through various roads reached the Panj Gola chowk, where the protesters held a demonstration.

DADU: Hundreds of activists of the JSQM and the JSSF staged a protest demonstration outside the local press club on Wednesday against proposed construction of the Kalabagh dam and the greater Thal canal.

Speaking on the occasion, the protesters said they would not accept any dam on the Indus river.

They announced to continue their protest unless their demand was met.

Later, they observed a token hunger strike.



http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/29/nat31.htm

Govt urged to give up dam plan

QUETTA, Dec 28: The Sindhi Adabi Sangat has demanded of the government to give up the idea of constructing the Kalabagh dam owing to the shortage of water in the Indus river.

Speaking at a press conference here on Wednesday, Dr. Altaf Hussain, councillor of the literary forum, said that the IRSA and Senate’s Standing Committee for Water and Resources had rejected the Kalabagh dam project in 1996 and 1998 respectively.

Dr Altaf said that according to constitutional requirements the Wapda authority should have filed an appeal in the Council of Common Interest against the rejection of the project by the IRSA.—Correspondent


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/29/nat13.htm

Wapda team briefs MMA on dams

By Our Staff Reporter

LAHORE, Dec 28: Wapda chairman Tariq Hameed along with a technical team gave a briefing to the MMA’s Punjab Council at Mansoora here on Wednesday as the alliance demanded setting up of the Council of Common Interests for taking a decision on water reservoirs.

MMA president Qazi Husain Ahmad was also present.

Alliance’s Punjab president Liaquat Baloch told reporters later that the Wapda team briefed them on feasibilities and capacities of three proposed dams —- Kalabagh, Bhasha and Akhori.

He said during the briefing the Wapda team declared that apprehensions of the other provinces could be removed.

The MMA, he said, demanded that the government should constitute the CCI to remove apprehensions of the other provinces besides taking parliament into confidence on the issue.

The water reservoirs and cheap electricity were urgent needs of the country but Gen Musharraf was hindering the development of a national consensus on the issue, he said, adding the alliance believed that unless Gen Musharraf was removed, national solidarity and unity could not be strengthened.

He said the MMA would hold a joint meeting of all opposition parties to share the information given by the Wapda team especially with the leaders from smaller provinces so that views of both sides could be heard for developing a national consensus on the issue.

On Balochistan problem, Mr Baloch said the MMA demanded immediate halt to the ongoing army operation and peaceful means to settle the issue.

He demanded that recommendations of the parliamentary committee on Balochistan should be implemented to peacefully end the present deadlock.

About the proposed mixed marathon in Lahore, he warned that the MMA would launch a protest campaign severer than those witnessed in the past.

Condemning arrests and cases against ulema, the MMA said expulsion of foreign students was a cruel step by the government.

The meeting rejected the show of hands method adopted for electing naib nazims for tehsil and district councils as mockery of democracy and violation of the Constitution.

The Supreme Court was urged to take a suo moto of it.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/29/nat8.htm

PML ‘divided’ over KBD

By Amjad Mahmood

LAHORE, Dec 28: The ruling PML is facing opposition within the party on the Kalabagh dam issue and is unlikely to table a resolution in parliament fearing defeat.

There are many PML senators and MNAs, who had voted against the project as MPAs in the past.

The party is divided even in its citadel —- Punjab —- as more and more MPs from the province are of the view that execution of the project in the present political atmosphere will be a blow to the federation, said party officials requesting anonymity.

The “high command” went a step further by directing withdrawal of a resolution in support of the dam that was to be taken up by the Punjab executive council of the party in its meeting held on Dec 16-18 which was also attended by the chief minister, the officials said.

The same forum had adopted the resolution in its last meeting held in September 2004.

The high-ups showed their displeasure when the PML Lawyers’ Wing adopted such a resolution at a meeting in the city last week, fearing such a step would add to the animosity against Punjab, they said.

The officials said that there was also apprehensions among the MPs that the political imbroglio in the wake of Kalabagh dam could be used by the powers-that-be to wrap up the assemblies.

These people argued that Gen Musharraf’s statement in Karachi that Punjab would topple the ruler who would oppose the water reservoir was meant to amplify misunderstandings against the province for creating the situation needed to dissolve the legislatures.

And why did the government choose to launch an army operation in Kohlu at a time when announcement for work on the dam was to be made? they questioned.



http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/29/nat6.htm

ANP vows to oppose Kalabagh Dam

By Our Staff Reporter

ISLAMABAD, Dec 28: The Awami National Party (ANP) has said Kalabagh Dam is a matter of life and death for the people of NWFP and they will stop its construction at any cost.

Speaking to reporters in the cafeteria of Parliament House on Wednesday, Information Secretary of the party Zahid Khan said the people of the NWFP would participate in an anti-Kalabagh Dam rally on Thursday to prove that they were totally against the project.

He said women and children would also take part in the protest rally which would be held at Jahangira near Nowshera. He said the ANP had invited all political and religious parties to the rally. (so when a rally is for recreational purposes, and is called a Marathon, the women and children are beaten with sticks if they participate. But now when its for their political motives, these hypocritical bastards of NWFP want to bring the women and children out! talk about two faced beliefs!)

Mr Khan said they were trying to save Pakistan while the rulers wanted to damage the country’s integrity. He criticized Gen Pervez Musharraf for what he said pitting Punjab against three smaller provinces.



http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/29/nat4.htm

Move on Kalabagh dam slammed: Govt fails to allay senators’ fears

By Raja Asghar

ISLAMABAD, Dec 28: The opposition launched a strong parliamentary offensive against the proposed Kalabagh dam on Wednesday at the start of a Senate debate.

The offensive was launched after a ruling party legislator’s move to put off discussion by offering an official briefing on the controversial project failed to gather much favour.

Awami National Party (ANP) leader Asfandyar Wali and two other opposition senators vowed to resist the construction of the dam at all costs calling the issue a battle for control over water of River Indus with serious implication for the future of Pakistan.

Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Khan Niazi, though not a member of the upper house, tried to defend the project. He said that the Kalabagh dam was the best option in a series of big reservoirs.

The opposition’s onslaught came on the eve of an anti-dam rally to be held on Thursday at Jehangira in Nowshera district that critics say would be one of the fertile areas of the NWFP to be affected by water storage and logging resulting in the construction of Kalabagh dam.

Senator Asfandyar was also joined by ANP member Ilyas Ahmed Bilour from the NWFP and Raza Mohammad Raza of the Pukhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party from Balochistan.

Mr Asfandyar said that the government’s insistence on the going ahead with the controversial project could encourage questions about the 1940 resolution passed by the then All-India Muslim League in Lahore for the creation of Pakistan as a separate Muslim homeland in the sub-continent. (huh? would he care to elaborate how?)

The ANP leader, who began his speech with an appeal for a cool-headed approach to the issue, saw the Kalabagh dam as a move designed to establish Punjab’s control over the Indus.

Mr Asfandyar described the project unsuitable even on technical grounds related to its cost, life, power generation and storage capacities and said the best option would be the Katzarah or Skardu dam in the Northern Areas that would produce more power than all other options put together and could last as long as a 1,000 years. Mr Niazi refuted the ANP leader’s arguments about the adverse effects of the Kalabagh dam such as the possible sinking of the NWFP towns of Nowshera and Jehangira.

He said the reservoir was needed to save water from going waste.

He regretted what he saw an attempt to paint Punjab as the culprit for political gains and asked opponents of the project not to put the future of the state at risk.

The minister, who is a member of the National Assembly from the Punjab’s Mianwali district where the dam is to be built over the Indus, said he would not mind even the merger of his district with the NWFP to entitle that province to receive electricity royalty of the project. “That will end the whole dispute,” he said.

Mr Niazi also rejected Mr Asfandyar’s fears that the dam would endanger country’s future and said: “Pakistan is

a reality and will remain a reality. The federation will remain and nobody will be able to harm it.”

In what was seen as move to delay the debate, Pakistan Muslim League chief whip Kamil Ali Agha had earlier proposed that officials of the Water and Power Development Authority should brief the house about plans for future dams like Kalabagh before such a discussion.

Leader of the House Wasim Sajjad endorsed the proposal, saying the government was ready to give such a briefing.

But opposition leader Raza Rabbani opposed the proposal and said that opposition senators already had sufficient knowledge of the issue and the ruling party could get briefings if they wanted.

The debate will resume when the house will meet at 3:30pm.

http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/29/top2.htm

Two water reports formally released: PM endorses 1991-accord


By Ahmed Hassan

ISLAMABAD, Dec 28: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Wednesday said Kalabagh was a natural location for the construction of a water reservoir, adding that a final decision about selection of one of the three proposed sites for undertaking first would be taken after completion of consultations with provinces and taking all stake-holders into confidence.

Mr Aziz was talking to journalists at the Prime Minister’s house after the government released on websites two of the three reports on the water issue, one on water reservoirs by a 9-member technical committee headed by A. G. N. Abbasi and the other on water requirements downstream Kotri by international experts.

He said that the process of consultations with political leaders was continuing and provincial experts on water reservoirs had been invited to the federal cabinet meeting on Saturday.

The premier said he had an aerial view of the proposed location of the Kalabagh dam during his visit to Chashma today and he was of the opinion that it was a natural location where water from four rivers — Indus, Kabul, Haro and Swan — converged and made a narrow water lane which seemed to be ideal for construction of a dam.

He said that the government had fulfilled the promise of making all the water reports public so that the people could go through them and form an opinion on the water reservoirs.

Senator Nisar Memon, the chairman of the parliamentary committee on water situation, would present his report in the Senate on Thursday, the premier said.

He said none of the nine members of Abbasi-led committee had opposed construction of dams as most of their objections related to technical aspects and priority. Answering a question, he said as far as the demand for implementation of 1991 water accord was concerned, the government had no objection.

To another query, premier Aziz said though foreign loaning agencies had shown interest in releasing funds for construction of dams, latest estimate of cost of dams was not available.

The prime minister said that Pakistan and China had agreed to further enhance their cooperation in nuclear power plants’ construction and Pakistan desired 600 MW power projects as against the two Chashma projects of 300 and 325 KW.

He said under the energy strategy, 8,800 MW nuclear power generation was the target and locations of new plants would be spread to those areas of the country, like Karachi, where power was in greater demand. (I would advise against building more nuclear power plants close to big cities liek Karachi. For obvious reasons.)

Answering yet another question, the prime minister rejected the notion that a military action was taking place in Balochistan and said that law enforcement agencies were taking action against miscreants in Kohlu, who had fired rockets when President Musharraf was on a visit to the area.

However, he said that the government believed in dialogue to resolve political issues and it would certainly like to settle the Balochistan dispute in an atmosphere of understanding.

When asked whether it was not failure of the Balochistan government in maintaining law and order that the federal government has to frequently rush in troops to initiate action, he said that it was a collective responsibility of the federal and provincial governments to take steps for restoration of peace when and where required.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/29/top1.htm

Water body report put on website

By Our Reporter

ISLAMABAD, Dec 28: The government has released the report of the Technical Committee on Water Resources headed by A.N.G. Abbasi. The report, being serialized in Dawn, is available at the government website www.pakistan.gov.pk.

Water and Power Secretary Ishfaq Mehmood announced at a press conference on Wednesday that the report had been put on the website on the directives of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

Mr Mehmood, however, refused to answer when it was suggested that the actual report had been diluted as only those points had been made public which endorsed the government’s stance on the construction of big water reservoirs and the distribution mechanism of the Indus River System Authority (Irsa).

The findings of studies on water flow below the Kotri Barrage, conducted by consultants Dr Fernando J Gonzalez, Dr Thinus Basson and Dr Bart Schultz, are also available on the website.

The studies have recommended a flow of 5,000 cusecs water below Kotri throughout the year in order to check seawater intrusion, meet the need for fisheries, maintain the river channel and for environmental sustainability.

The study calls for releasing downstream Kotri 0.3 million acre feet (MAF) water during Rabi season (October to March), more than that or at least same volume during Kharif season (April to September) and a total volume of 25 MAF water in flood season, expected to occur in every fifth year.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/29/top12.htm

I must say that Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz have handled the Kalabagh Dam scenario VERY VERY poorly.

They should have anticipated the kind of opposition they were going to get because of the past history of the project, and they should have worked to use a more effective strategy to allay the fears of all the provinces properly.

KARACHI: Bhasha dam be built first, says Arbab

KARACHI, Dec 28: Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim has said that the provincial government agrees with President Musharraf’s ‘Water Vision 2006-2016’ and favours construction of big dams to meet shortage of water and power in the country, but it demands that Bhasha Dam be built first.

He was talking to a delegation of the Sindh Abadgar Board, Chamber of Agriculture, Sugarcane Growers Association and landowners which called on him at the CM’s House here on Wednesday.

Dr Arbab said the provincial government had serious reservations with regard to the construction of Kalabagh Dam and removal of the reservations was necessary.

He categorically stated that Sindh would never accept Kalabagh Dam with canals.

“A constitutional guarantee has to be given on water issue, and no amendment to it should be made without unanimous approval by the Sindh Assembly. Besides, judicial and administrative guarantees to the satisfaction of Sindh people were needed to be given,” he said.

He said his government had demanded that the 1991 accord be implemented in letter and spirit, telemetry system be put in order and its in-charge be appointed from Sindh. The Sindh government would never go against the interests of the province, he declared.—PPI


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/29/local2.htm

LAHORE: President General Pervez Musharraf has said that Sindh is committing suicide by opposing Kalabagh Dam and pledged to announce a decision on the dam “very soon”.

“I call myself a Sindhi and know that Sindh is committing suicide by opposing the KBD because it would get maximum benefit if the KBD is constructed and maximum loss if it is not constructed,” Gen Musharraf told senior journalists and newspaper editors in a speech at a Council of Pakistan Newspapers Editors (CPNE) luncheon on Thursday.

The president said water was Pakistan’s biggest issue but some politicians were portraying the government’s drive to build consensus on KBD as a bid to divert public attention from earthquake relief work. Pakistan will face a water shortage of 15 to 20 million acre feet (MAF) by 2020 so it needs at least three new dams by 2016, he said. “If we don’t construct dams, our economy will be crippled because we are an agro-based country and our lands will go barren,” he added.

Gen Musharraf said he could have made life easier for himself by not raising the controversial KBD issue, but this would have been disloyal to Pakistan. “I do not know who will be alive after 15 years, but my nation will exist and will benefit from new dams,” he said.

He felt that he had succeeded in softening the positions of people in Sindh when he visited the province to drum up support for KBD, and he would visit Sindh again and NWFP. “I will try to involve opposition parties … But dams will be constructed at all cost and I will announce my decision very soon,” he said.

Gen Musharraf said the Balochistan issue was straightforward: the government and people of Balochistan wanted development, but a couple of local tribes were making trouble.

For example, the government started the Gwadar project and called in Chinese engineers to work on it, but the “irritants” kidnapped them. “We wanted to give water to the people of Kohlu but the miscreants fired rockets over there and targeted the IG of the Frontier Corps. If they shoot at the IG, he will not offer them flowers but retaliate in the same way in self-defence,” he said.

He said that a statement by a “neighbouring country” about the situation in Balochistan was “intriguing”. “We know who is financing and supplying weapons to the irritants,” he said.

Gen Musharraf said that he was committed to introducing real and lasting democracy in Pakistan and the National Security Council was a step in this direction. He said that there were three power brokers in Pakistan - the president, prime minister and army chief - and the NSC acted as a check over them. “I predict that if somebody tries to break the NSC in future, he will invite martial law,” he said.

He said that his position as both army chief and president was not an issue until 2007. “In the present circumstances my uniform is necessary and we will see this issue in 2007,” he said.

The president said that had he not been the army chief as well, the army would not have responded as rapidly in crises like the earthquake, the bursting of Sukkur Barrage and the fighting in Balochistan. “I ordered immediate action, otherwise the prime minister would have called the army chief to pass him directions which would have taken a long time to act upon.”

Gen Musharraf said Pakistan-India relations were getting stronger by the day, though there had been no major breakthrough in the Kashmir dispute. He said Pakistan had gained the “moral ascendancy” on Kashmir. The international community previously labelled Pakistan a rogue state but this had changed.

http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2005\12\30\story_30-12-2005_pg1_1

get ready for todays news grind!

Bhasha dam be built first, says House body: Punjab seeks simultaneous work on Kalabagh; report placed in Senate


By Our Staff Reporter

ISLAMABAD, Dec 29: The Parliamentary Committee on Water Resources (PCWR) has voiced unanimous support for Bhasha dam’s immediate construction even as its members from Punjab proposed that Kalabagh dam be simultaneously constructed with it.

The committee’s interim report, which was presented on the floor of the Senate on Thursday by Senator Nisar Memon, called for an “executive decision” on the issue of constructing large dams “based on various efforts towards (developing) consensus or a decision in the National Security Council (NSC) or the Council of Common Interests (CCI)”.

“All members agreed to Bhasha dam and its immediate construction but members from Punjab wanted it to be constructed simultaneously with Kalabagh (dam),” says the PCWR report.

The report notes that while committee members from the NWFP and Sindh had opposed Kalabagh dam, representatives from Balochistan backed its construction on the condition that consensus was reached among all the provinces.

The report recommends that all decisions (on water-related issues) be implemented with consensus. “Wherever consensus is achieved, it should be immediately implemented to create an environment of confidence and move forward for consensus on bigger issues,” it says.

“If despite all efforts, consensus is not arrived at, the government after required debate in the parliament and national media may take executive decisions or refer the matter to the NSC or the CCI for a final decision in the best interest of the country keeping in view the sensitivities involved and possible impact on national harmony,” it adds.

According to the report, major gaps exist between the provinces on water availability and large dam sites. It pointed to lack of consensus on the priority of dams and cited as proof the July 2004 meeting of the committee which was attended by all the four chief ministers.

The Sindh government’s position, as indicated in a March 2004 presentation to the PCWR, was that there was no water available for storage. But the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) insisted that 19.10 million acre feet (MAF) of water was available for future development.

The matter was taken up in the PCWR meeting and all the secretaries of provincial irrigation departments subscribed to the view that since availability of water for large storages was part of the technical committee’s terms of reference (ToRs) this technical subject should be left to it. Therefore, it was decided that no decision on water availability would be taken by the PCWR.

Still the PCWR succeeded in achieving consensus on a number of issues, some of which had remained unresolved for over 12 years. First, consensus reached between the provinces was on water studies. The provinces agreed to carry out studies on “minimal water escapages below Kotri to check sea water intrusion” and “water escapages downstream Kotri to address environmental concerns”.

Similarly, the provinces have also developed a consensus on conducting a “study on environmental concerns in all other areas of the country.”

According to the report, a consensus was also achieved in a meeting of the PCWR with chief ministers on “1991 Water Accord and Provincial Priority Projects”. There was an agreement among the chief ministers that large dams needed to be built in the country but with consensus.

All the provinces are unanimous in the view that the 1991 Water Accord is “sacrosanct and will be implemented in ‘toto’ without any reference to the 1994 Ministerial Decisions.” The chief ministers supported provincial priority projects and construction of small reservoirs in the provinces at a cost of Rs8.1 billion.

The PCWR has also recommended some “confidence building measures (CBMs) in order to “restore harmony and confidence between provinces”. The committee calls for “implementing the proposed 41 projects in Balochistan costing Rs56.5 billion to harness 6.54 MAF of flood run off to irrigate 1.32 million acres.”

It also stresses the need for easing the “apprehensions” of the people of the NWFP and Sindh on the Kalabagh dam project.

Moreover, the PCWR has recommended the construction of 20 small dams to provide drinking water in the water scarce areas of the NWFP, which will also irrigate some 79,250 acres of the province.

With respect to the CBMS for Sindh, the committee calls for “implementing the 1991 Water Accord, including 10-day statements vis-à-vis Greater Thal Canal, in letter and spirit.”

As far as Punjab is concerned, the report says, it is committed to the Kalabagh dam project.

The committee also points to the need for launching an awareness campaign on water issues through the media.

The PCWR was constituted by the National Assembly speaker through a notification on Oct 10, 2003, with Senator Nisar Memon from Sindh as its chairman. The committee’s members, all from the treasury benches, were Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli (NWFP), Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Resources Mir Naseer Mengal (Balochistan), Senator Syed Dilwar Abbas (Punjab), MNA Syed Abdul Qadir Jamaluddin Al-Gillani (Balochistan), Federal Minister for Industries and Production Jahangir Tareen (Punjab), MNA Mohammad Ali Malkani (Sindh) and MNA Sher Akbar Khan (NWFP).


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/30/top1.htm

Anti-dam rally blocks GT Road for 7 hours

Bureau Report

JEHANGIRA, Dec 29: An anti-Kalabagh dam rally here on Thursday declared the controversial project “disastrous” and warned that its construction would mark the beginning of the disintegration of the federation.

“This rally warns military rulers and their stakeholders in Punjab that the construction of the so-called Kalabagh dam would result in the federation falling apart,” a resolution unanimously adopted at the rally organized by the Awami National Party (ANP) said.

The rally asked international financial institutions not to lend money for a divisive project like Kalabagh dam.

Leaders from almost all the political parties, excluding the PML and PML-N, attended the public meeting held on the Grand Trunk Road, some 60km to the east of Peshawar.

The ruling MMA represented by JUI-F Senator Maulana Gul Naseeb and Jamaat-i-Islami MNA Usman advocate threw its weight behind opponents of the Kalabagh dam.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s brother Maulana Ata-ur-Rehman also attended the rally but did not make a speech.

The PPP (Sherpao), an ally of President Pervez Musharraf and the ruling PML (Q), was represented by former federal minister Mian Muzaffar Shah who minced no words in opposing the dam.

He warned that those in the government would have to make up their mind whether they stood by their own people.

Baloch nationalists were the most strident in their criticism of the military for what they called “denying smaller provinces their rights and imposing its decisions on them”.

The lone representative from Sindh was Awami Tehrik’s Abdul Qadir who said that his province would never agree to a project that was bound to transform it into a desert.

The participants of the rally dominated by ANP’s red-shirted workers and activists of the PPP-P, Pukhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party and the JUI, shouted anti-Musharraf and anti-Kalabagh dam slogans.

The GT Road remained blocked for almost seven hours and traffic between Peshawar and Islamabad was diverted through Tarbela and Haripur.

The resolution said that the proposed dam would submerge fertile lands of the NWFP, turn Sindh into a desert and destroy the Pat Feeder system in Balochistan.

It said the smaller provinces had been compelled to think that Gen Musharraf, in collaboration with Punjab, wanted to drown and destroy the three provinces.

It said that Musharraf’s argument that Punjab would topple any government that opposed the Kalabagh dam was a testimony that he wanted to pit federating units against each other.

“It proves that Punjab is Pakistan and Pakistan is Punjab,” the two-page resolution read and warned that President Musharraf and his associates would be squarely responsible for any harm done to the integrity of Pakistan.

“We want to live like brothers in Pakistan but not slaves,” the resolution concluded.

Another resolution called for an immediate end to the military operation in Balochistan and resolution of all issues through dialogue with its genuine leadership.

ANP’s president Asfandyar Wali Khan said that it was no longer a struggle for rights but a battle for survival.

“Pakistan and Kalabagh dam cannot co-exist,” he said and asked Punjab to make the choice. “You cannot have your cake and eat it too.”

He warned that any attempt to thrust a decision on smaller provinces could lead to a 1971-like situation. He also warned that those who disregarded the unanimous resolutions of the NWFP, Sindh and Balochistan assemblies on the issue of Kalabagh dam could prompt some people to question the 1946 Lahore Resolution that had led to the creation of Pakistan.

Asfandyar said that smaller provinces were being pushed to the wall and they had no option but to confront rather than make compromises over the issue.

He said the ANP was opposed to the disintegration of the country but if the establishment was bent upon drowning its people “then we will choose how we want to die”.



http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/30/top2.htm

KBD supporters fall in minority in Senate debate


By Raja Asghar

ISLAMABAD, Dec 29: Advocates of the proposed Kalabagh dam seemed isolated on Thursday on the second day of a Senate debate on the controversial project, which drew support from only a few ruling party back-benchers from Punjab and more criticism from opposition parties and even a government ally.

Even a preliminary report on water resources tabled by a parliamentary committee of only ruling coalition members was not of much comfort because it reported a consensus of the provincial chief ministers over the construction of the Bhasha dam in the Northern Areas rather than on Kalabagh, with only the Punjab chief minister seeking a simultaneous construction of both. (Anybody find a pattern here with Punjab?)

While all the four opposition senators who took part in the debate blasted the project on both political and technical grounds, the most prominent speaker from as many of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, Senator S.M. Zafar, did not utter a word in support of the Kalabagh dam and suggested an immediate revival of the Council of Common Interests to settle the row.

No support for the dam has so far come from any of the ruling party members from the smaller provinces of Sindh, the North West Frontier Province and Balochistan, whose assemblies have already passed resolutions against the dam proposed to be built over the River Indus in the Kalabagh area in the Punjab province.

While a faction of the Pakistan People’s Party (Patriots), led by Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, is reported to have joined the anti-Kalabagh movement in the NWFP, a back-bencher of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Abida Said, declared that her party, which is a partner in the ruling coalition, would not support a project not acceptable to smaller provinces.

Mr Zafar, a prominent jurist and former law minister, proposed giving a ‘constitutional mandate’ to the 1991 inter-provincial water apportionment accord by getting it approved by the CCI, saying it should settle the controversy over the construction of water reservoirs whereas a violation of the accord could be challenged before the Supreme Court.

Prof Khurshid Ahmed of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal said the country needed water reservoirs, but accused President Musharraf of trying to impose his choice of the project against the wishes of some provinces and warned that ‘Kalabagh dam could become a kala nag (black cobra) with serious consequences’ if that attitude did not change.

The presentation of the interim report of the eight-member parliamentary committee by its chairman Nisar A. Memon was also marked by controversy after the opposition said it had neither accepted the formation or the finding of the body which it said had no representation.

Opposition leader Raza Rabbani said the committee, nominated by the National Assembly speaker and later approved by a Senate resolution, was a ruling party committee rather than of parliament because no opposition member was named on it.

He described the formation of the committee by the lower house speaker as unconstitutional because, he said, only the CCI was competent to set up a parliamentary or other committee to make recommendations about inter-provincial water issues.

Mr Rabbani also put a question mark on the impartiality of Mr Memon because of his recent role as chief of the Senate standing committee on defence.

A committee meeting attended by nine members on December 16 had opposed planned purchase of some VVIP planes.



http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/30/top3.htm

WB, ADB warned against funding Kalabagh dam


ISLAMABAD, Dec 29: People affected by mega water projects from various parts of the country here on Thursday held a demonstration in front of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank and warned them not to fund the Kalabagh Dam, saying it would disintegrate the country.

They blamed both the banks for not abiding by their own guidelines in implementing major projects in Pakistan which had not only damaged the environment but also displaced thousands of people.

The participants were carrying banners and placards inscribed with slogans like “WB the killer of poor”, “Down with dam”, “Musharraf must decide: Pakistan or dam”.

The protest was organized by the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum and Actionaid.

The protesters handed over a memorandum first to the acting country director of the WB, Abid Hussain, and then to an official of the ADB.

They complained to the WB official that the bank was backing the government to pursue the project of mega water reservoirs and had assured it of funding the Kalabagh Dam despite the fact that it would displace more than 210,000 people and affect millions of others besides shaking the foundation of the federation.—Our Reporter


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/30/top17.htm

Protest against Kalabagh dam continues

Dawn Report

JACOBABAD, Dec 29: Under the aegis of different political parties, a procession was taken out here on Thursday against the proposed construction of the Kalabagh dam and the army operation in Balochistan. The protesters, carrying banners and placards, raised slogans against the controversial water project and the Balochistan operation.

The procession, led by People’s Party Parliamentarians MNA Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani, started from the Shaheed Allah Bux park and after marching through different roads of the town reached the Quetta road where the protesters staged a sit-in. Later, the protesters reached the press club.

Speaking on the occasion, union council nazims Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani, Israr Khan Jakhrani and Zulfiqar Lashari, Sindh Taraqqi Pasand Party leader Ali Mohammad, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam leader Dr A. G. Ansari and others said the Kalabagh project should be shelved and the operation in Balochistan stopped, otherwise national integrity would be endangered.

They also demanded an increase in paddy prices to enable growers to make both ends meet.

They gathering also passed resolutions against the Kalabagh dam and the Balochistan operation.

SEMINAR: Representatives of political and religious parties and social and trade organizations have opposed the Kalabagh dam and demanded that the government should shelve the project.

They were speaking at a seminar on “Pakistan or Kalabagh dam” organized by the Pakistan People’s Party-SB at the local press club.

PPP MNA Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani, Citizens Union president Mohammad Akram Abro, district PPP-SB organizer Nadeem Qureshi, Mohammad Younus Mahar, JUI leader Dr A. G. Ansari, UC nazim and STPP leader Ali Mohammad Lashari and JSQM leader Ghulam Sarwar Mastoi criticized the Kalabagh project.

They said the country was dismembered in 1971 due to wrong policies of then rulers and the present government was repeating the same mistakes. They held President Gen Pervez Musharraf and his government responsible for the situation.

They claimed that Sindh had right on 75 per cent water of the River Indus under the water agreement of 1945.

They also criticized the operation in Balochistan and demanded that the government should stop it forthwith.

NAWABSHAH: District Nazim Faryal Talpur has called upon the government to consider feelings of all four provinces, especially Sindh, before taking any decision on controversial Kalabagh dam project.

She was talking to reporters at the press club here on Thursday.

She said that her priorities were to supply clean water, basic health facilities and quality education to residents of Nawabshah.

The nazim said she was concerned about traffic problems in the city and would talk to the DPO about it.

Replying to a question about her relationship with the Haq Parast group, she said she wanted friendly relationship with them and had held talks with them.

She said coordination between the ADP and the HPG would solve problems of the people.

Earlier, the nazim congratulated newly-elected office-bearers of the Nawabshah press club.

MPA Ghulam Qadir Chandio, District Naib Nazim Abdul Haq Jamali, Nawabshah taluka Naib Nazim Khan Bahadur Bhatti and People’s Lawyers Forum president Ziaul Hassan Lanjhar were present on the occasion.

http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/30/nat12.htm

The federation will die out?

These guys think they have some god given power to seaperate Pakistan! Do they know that the people of Pakistan's provinces do not want this to happen? I think the Pakistani populace knows that such a seaperation would be worse on them.

Time for another day's hot and fresh Kalabagh Dam news. Freshly baked out of the oven.

NA speaker favours reservoirs


By Our Correspondent

SIALKOT, Dec 30: National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Ameer Husain has said the early construction of Kalabagh dam and other water reservoirs is in the national interest.

Addressing a big public meeting at Miani village here on Thursday night, he said the government would soon take the nation into confidence over the issue.

He said the government was making sincere efforts to raise the living standard of the people by providing them basic facilities.

He said the local body system was playing an instrumental role in resolving the people’s problems.

The speaker said the environment was conducive for foreign investment in Pakistan due to the policies and special packages of incentives for investors by the government. He said the government has put the country’s economy at the right direction.

Illegal CDs: The law-enforcement agencies in their efforts to contain software piracy in the country raided a computer hard disk loader and confiscated 1,231 illegal CDs and two computers loaded with the pirated software.

The software included illegal copies of adobe photo shop, Microsoft windows, Microsoft office, Symantec Norton utilities, adobe acrobat and Symantec Norton anti-virus, besides many other popular computer programmes valuing millions of rupees, said Business Software Alliance’s Middle East co-chairman Al Redha in a press statement on Friday.

He said: “The dealers and end-users should realize that the BSA in cooperation with the government and law-enforcement agencies is serious about stamping out piracy from the country.”

He said the BSA, through its educational campaigns, had been asking the businessmen to load licensed software, but many companies and individuals had still not heeded to the call.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/31/top18.htm

Cabinet to discuss water reports today


ISLAMABAD, Dec 30: The federal cabinet on Saturday will review reports of parliamentary, technical and Kotri downstream studies on construction of reservoirs.

The meeting, to be presided over by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, will discuss issues regarding a decision on construction of reservoirs. The report of parliamentary committee will be presented to the Senate.

Meanwhile, Mr Aziz will take the opinion of all the federal ministers and state ministers at the meeting regarding construction of reservoirs and later take President Gen Pervez Musharraf into confidence concerning decisions taken by the cabinet.—Online


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/31/top16.htm

NALC legislators oppose Skardu, Bhasha dams


By Our Correspondent

GILGIT, Dec 30: Public representatives have opposed Skardu or Bhasha dam plans as the construction will destroy the historical monuments and cultural heritage of the region. (When Egypt built the Aswan Dam, it moved an entire freaking mountain full of ancient monuments to a new location! If some heritage is gonna be threatened, they should start taking steps to relocate the heritage site instead of starting another controversy)

In a joint statement, Northern Areas Legislative Council (NALC) members Imran Nadeem, Haji Abdul Quddus and Hafiz Hafizur Rehman said that they would offer the strongest possible resistance in case people of the area were not taken into confidence over the construction of the proposed dams which were located in the territorial limits of the Northern Areas.

They said that construction of Bhasha dam would inundate the whole Chilas city of Diamer district, whereas the Skardu dam would wipe out the thickly populated city of Skardu and its cultural heritage and disturb the environmental and fragile ecosystem.

They said that the constitutional status of the Northern Areas (Gilgit-Baltistan) is yet to be determined and do not fall in the constitutional ambit of Pakistan. Therefore, they said, it should be settled before construction of dams in the region so that the issues royalty and compensation could be settled in accordance with the Constitution of Pakistan’s article 161.

They deplored that the people of Northern Areas were never made part of the discussion on dams despite the fact that at least eight main rivers and hundreds of water streams directly contributed to the Indus river.

They said that the voice of the people of Northern Areas was seldom heard in the power corridors because the region had no representation in the National Assembly and Senate.

They said the proposed site of Bhasha dam was controversial as it fell in the jurisdiction of Diamer district of the Northern Areas but some vested interests wished to name it Bhasha just to claim royalty and compensation.

The legislators urged President Gen Pervez Musharraf to visit the Northern Areas and take people of the area into confidence on the construction of proposed Bhasha and Skardu dams.



http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/31/top6.htm

3 provinces agree on Bhasha dam: Arbab


By Shafiq Ahmad

PESHAWAR, Dec 30: Sindh Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim has said that President Gen Pervez Musharraf has been empowered to take a decision about the National Finance Commission (NFC) award and not on the construction of Kalabagh Dam.

They had not given power to the president to take a unilateral decision on the Kalabagh Dam construction, he told journalists at the end of a one-day workshop organized by the Citizen-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) here at a local hotel on Friday.

He said three provincial governments, excluding Punjab, were agreed on the construction of Bhasha Dam and Sindh wanted its construction first. “We have authorized Gen Pervez Musharraf to decide on the NFC award issue and not on the construction of Kalabagh Dam,” said Mr Rahim.

The people of Sindh had reservations on the planned emanation of canals from Kalabagh Dam. However, they were optimistic that the president would take all the people in confidence before the dams’ construction, he said

The Sindh government, he said, wanted that the president should implement the 1991 Water Accord and correct the telemetry system set up on canals.

The Sindh chief minister said he appreciated the broad vision of President Gen Musharraf about the construction of dams in the country to handle energy crisis in the country.

He said the president would visit the four provinces to know people’s views on the Kalabagh Dam issue. Gen Pervez Musharraf would take all the provincial governments into confidence before taking any important decision, he added.

He said there was water and power crisis in the country and the existing dams were silting up. “We favour the constructions of dams to fulfil the future energy needs,” Dr Ghulam Rahim said.

FOREIGN STUDENTS: Speaking on the occasion, NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani rejected a government plan for expelling foreign students of seminaries in Pakistan.

Flanked by Dr Ghulam Rahim, the NWFP chief minister told the newsmen that the foreign students studying in seminaries on valid visas should not be expelled from the country.

“If we do this, other countries can take the same action against our students studying in their colleges and countries,” Mr Durrani argued.

Earlier, at the launch of the CPLC, Mr Durrani said he had sanctioned maximum funds for the betterment of police, but the police would have to restore their image.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/31/top5.htm

Chaos continues to reign in Senate


By Raja Asghar

ISLAMABAD, Dec 30: Scenes of pandemonium were once again witnessed in the Senate as members continued their fiery debate on Kalabagh dam on Friday.

The day’s proceedings were also marked by two token protest walkouts by opposition parties, one during the Kalabagh debate and an earlier one over a fresh offensive by security forces in Dera Bugti district of Balochistan province. (I guess they are being paid to walk out and not debate the issue in the assembly. Sure, they wanna walk out. Who cares about parliamentary procedure?)

On the third day of what has often been an acrimonious debate on “issues relating to the construction of large water dams in the country”, some ruling coalition members seemed unimpressed by the reports of the government’s hand-picked technical committee and a parliamentary committee preferring alternatives and still pressed on for the Kalabagh site in the Mianwali district of Punjab.

The Senate first plunged into an uproar of opposition protests as leader of the house Wasim Sajjad announced that the government would arrange a briefing for the house on Monday on the issue by the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda), which some opposition senators say is dominated by Punjabi officials.

To make this announcement, Mr Sajjad seized upon a proposal by Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) parliamentary leader Maulana Gul Naseeb that the government start with the Bhasha dam in the Northern Areas and in the meanwhile take more technical advice about Kalabagh.

But in spite of endorsement from presiding officer Mohammad Akram of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML), the move backfired as the opposition rejected the idea amid noisy protests, although Awami National Party (ANP) member Ilyas Ahmed Bilour said the opposition would welcome briefings by independent experts from all provinces but not by what he called “zar kharid” (slave) Wapda.

Though the opposition parties made it clear they will not attend a Wapda briefing, Mr Sajjad and PML’s chief whip Kamil Ali Agha said the briefing would be held in any case at 1:00pm on Monday in an apparent move to project the perceived merits of the Kalabagh site over others.

But some time later the opposition’s chants became shriller and members walked out of the house in protest when the chair gave the floor to Minister of State for Environment Malik Amin Aslam Khan, who is not a senator, to speak in the debate, in place of PML’s Mrs Tanvir Khalid from Karachi, who too protested against the switch of turns then and during a speech later in support of the Kalabagh dam.

Mr Malik made a well-prepared speech to a sparsely-attended house after the opposition walkout while Mr Akram, who was chairing the session in the absence of Senate chairman Mohammedmian Soomro, ignored repeated shouts from the MMA’s Mohammad Ismail Buledi, who had stayed on in the house, that the chamber lacked quorum.

The ruling coalition suffered another embarrassment earlier during the debate when Mohim Khan Baloch of the Balochistan National Party (Awami), which is a member of the ruling coalition, opposed the Kalabagh dam and called for the construction of Bhasha dam, on grounds that all provinces were unanimous in the support for it.

WALKOUT OVER BALOCHISTAN: Members of the opposition walked out of the house at the start of the day’s proceedings after Jamhoori Watan Party’s Amanullah Kanrani, speaking on a point of order, said the paramilitary Frontier Corps had mounted a fresh offensive in Dera Bugti earlier in the morning with mortar fire and bombing and complained of arrests of political activists in other districts as well.

When Mohim Khan Baloch of BNP-Awami said the Balochistan situation was explosive and constituted a violation of human rights, Wasim Sajjad wanted to know why the opposition hadn’t talked of human rights when three Punjabis travelling by a bus were shot dead in the province earlier in the week.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/31/top2.htm

Musharraf asks people to reject agitation: ‘IMF approved KBD feasibility’


By Zahid Shakeel

MANDI BAHAUDDIN, Dec 30: President Pervez Musharraf on Friday urged people to reject calls for strikes and agitation and said a decision on water resources would be made in the best national interest.

“Ignore strike calls as we are sincere about serving the nation,” he said while addressing a large gathering of elected local government representatives at Mona Depot, some 38 kilometres from here.

President Musharraf said the IMF and other international financial institutions had approved Kalabagh project’s feasibility.

The visit, sources said, marked the launch of the president’s whirlwind tour of the country to augment the pace of development at the grass-root level. He announced that he planned to visit each district to personally supervise development projects.

“I do not fear anyone, especially politicians who have nothing to offer but agitation,” he said, adding: “Agitation cannot stop us from forging ahead on the path to prosperity.”

According to APP, President Musharraf said it was not just a matter of a single dam. “We have to build three dams by 2016, otherwise our farmlands will become barren.”

Stressing the importance of water for agricultural and industrial growth, he said adequate water availability would ensure irrigation of more land and make generation of inexpensive hydroelectric power possible.

Blaming previous regimes for ignoring the construction of new water storage facilities for three decades, he said during that time, other countries had gone ahead with comprehensive plans for conserving the natural resource.

Enumerating steps taken by the government as part of its Water Vision, the president said brick-lining of thousands of water channels across the country would help save water and bring more land under cultivation.

He said the government was pursuing far-reaching development plans that would bring about a visible improvement in the lives of people in key sectors, including health, education, agriculture and industry.

Citing efforts aimed at poverty alleviation, President Musharraf said country-wide provision of electricity and safe drinking water by the year 2007 would quicken the pace of development.

Referring to goals for improving the health sector, the president said activation of basic health units and rural health centres at the primary level, establishment of tehsil hospitals at secondary level and improvement in the quality of services and equipment at district hospitals would provide adequate medical care to the people.

http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/31/top1.htm

PWC rejects dam without canal


By Our Staff Reporter

LAHORE, Dec 30: The Punjab Water Council (PWC) on Friday refused to accept Kalabagh dam without a left bank canal. Speaking at a Press conference, PWC President Farhatullah Khan, flanked by Hamid Malhi, Rabia Sultan, Farooq Bajwa, Umer Sarfraz Cheema, demanded immediate construction of the dam.

The PWC office-bearers also accused the Punjab chief minister of taking a ‘weak stand’ on the issue.

“The dam without canals would be an irreparable loss to farmers,” said Rabia Sultan. Link canals in the irrigation system, she said, were meant for sharing water and, under the 1991 accord, every province had right to draw water from every canal.

She also dispelled the impression that the Chashma-Jhelum and Taunsa-Punjnad canals were floodwater channels .

“Various circles are targeting Punjab without any justification and levelling accusations like usurping others’ rights which is regrettable,” she said.

In the heat of the moment, she claimed, various circles had even become intellectually dishonest and distorting even simple and easily verifiable facts. “Punjab has always scarified for others and surrendered its water share when required,” she said. “In these circumstances, accusing it of usurping others’ rights hardly makes sense.”

Mr Hamid Malhi took the occasion to claim that Punjab’s water share should not be less than 51 per cent if availability remained below 114 million acre feet. But its share had been reduced sub stantially because of the 1991 water accord. “The accord has proven to be a trap (for the Punjab).”

Bitterly criticising the provincial leadership, Mr Malhi said “if they have to do politics here, they have to look after the interest of the province as well.”

The country, he added, had been witnessing acute water shortage due to silting up of the existing reservoirs. Despite the filling-up of Tarbela and Mangla, he said the country was facing 18 per cent water shortage during the current Rabi season.

Farooq Bajwa claimed that Punjab’s farmers were now getting 54maf only whereas they got 66.5maf in 1947. Sindh, he said, had no sole right on Indus water. “Punjab is an equal partner, if not more,” he asserted.

Water shortage, he said, had threatened the very existence of the country and not of a single federating unit. Bajwa said underground water table was dwindling with every passing day. Quoting an international study, he said the aquifer was depleting at a yearly rate of 15maf. “The country is heading towards disaster if it fails to shore up its storage capacity. It needs a series of big reservoirs.”

Umer Sarfraz Cheema was of the view that the Punjab government was fast losing popularity among farmers due to its inefficiency in the agriculture sector. He wanted the provincial government to provide free electricity to farmers as they had to foot heavy bills for pumping out water for irrigation.

http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/31/nat10.htm

Now its just a matter of principle and regulations I guess. Detailed water usage studies should be carried out for the Dam with or without the canal, and action should be taken based on prescribed laws. If laws governing it are outdated and nonexistant, Punjab and Sindh need to call a conference and try to form some kind of an agreement

Announcement on reservoirs soon: Rashid


LAHORE, Dec 30: Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said on Friday that an announcement regarding the construction of new water reservoirs in the country was expected to be made soon.

Speaking at a news conference, the minister said the matter of dams construction had reached a point of ‘now or never.’

He said four major dams — Kalabagh, Bhasha, Munda and Akhori — would be built to protect interests of poor peasants.

He said Kalabagh was the most feasible and profitable project. He said Bhasha was a glacier water reservoir while Kalabagh would be fed by monsoon rains.

The minister expressed the hope that apprehensions of Sindh leadership on the KBD would be removed and all coalition partners of the ruling party would be on board with the government at the time of its launch as the government would protect interests of all and give required guarantees.—APP


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/31/nat11.htm

‘KBD to have over 100-year lifespan’


By Our Staff Reporter

LAHORE, Dec 30: The Kalabagh dam will have a lifespan of more than 100 years, says a press release issued by the Water and Power Development Authority here on Friday.

The project has been studied extensively, and the experts have concluded the dam will be providing 4.4 million acre feet water even after 50 years of usage. It will provide 3.2maf water even after 100 years.

Cumulation of silt has been studied with the latest computer models and the results reviewed by the Chinese and international experts. These experts have concluded that the dam has more than 100 years of life.

Advancement in technologies has made it possible to introduce new technologies for increasing lifespan of the dam. Mid-level Sluicing is one such technology, which allows clearance of sediment deposited in the lake of the dam regularly, thus increasing the life of the dam, it claimed. (how about using mid-level sluicing on Tarbela or Mangla reservoirs that are already heavily silted up?)

http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/31/nat12.htm

GCCI supports Kalabagh dam


By Our Correspondent

GUJRANWALA, Dec 30: The local chamber of commerce and industry has supported the president’s stance on the Kalabagh dam. Participants in the meeting, held under the chair of GCCI president Akhlaq Ahmad Butt on Friday, stressed the need to implement suggestions of the parliamentary committee for water for simultaneously constructing Kalabagh and Bhasha dams.

They urged President Pervez Musharraf to initiate work on the construction of both dams immediately to avoid disaster and collapse of the national economy.

NOTICES: The Aroop Town nazim served show-cause notices on all employees for their absence from duty here on Friday.

Reports said Town Nazim Rao Ikram Ali Khan paid a surprise visit to his office and found all employees, except the office superintendent, absent.

The nazim expressed his dismay over the late coming of employees and issued them show-cause notices.

He also convened a meeting and warned employees to ensure their in time attendance at the office. Otherwise, he said, action would be taken against them under the efficiency and discipline rules of the Punjab government.

Mr Ikram Ali directed the anti-encroachment squad to remove all encroachments without any discrimination while sanitary workers should ensure the cleanliness.

CONVOCATION: The annual convocation of the Government Islamia College will be held on Saturday (today) at 11am in the college ground. Minister Imran Masood will be the chief guest.



http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/31/nat17.htm

‘NWFP did not empower president on Kalabagh’


By Mohammed Riaz

PESHAWAR, Dec 30: The NWFP government has denied that it has empowered President Gen Pervez Musharraf in writing to make a decision about construction of water reservoirs in any part of the country.

Speaking on a point of order in the provincial assembly, Information Minister Asif Iqbal Daudzai denied that Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani or any government spokesman had asked the president to decide about the construction of water reservoirs or dams on a particular place in the country.

He said the NWFP had empowered the president to make an acceptable decision on the National Finance Commission award.

He said the nation was in dire need of water reservoirs, but a consensus among the four federating units was essential before taking up such projects. The NWFP government, he said, would not be a party to any controversial decisions.

The minister said that a fruitless debate on the divisive issue was damaging national unity, which should be avoided at all cost.

Khalil Abbas Khan of the Awami National Party had earlier asked the provincial government to clarify its stand on President Musharraf’s statement in which he claimed he was enjoying confidence of the four provinces on the construction of the Kalabagh dam.

He demanded that the NWFP government explain who had empowered the president to make such a statement, and issue a rebuttal.

Endorsing the demand, ANP’s Mukhtar Ali Khan said this house had passed a unanimous resolution against the construction of Kalabagh dam, but the Centre was not paying any heed to the wishes of the provincial assembly.

Israrullah Khan Gandapur of the Pakistan People’s Party (Sherpao) said Dera Ismail Khan should be provided irrigation water from the left canal so that its barren areas could be brought under cultivation.

Amanat Shah of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal proposed that the Bhasha dam should be constructed instead of the Kalabagh dam, which had been rejected by three provinces.

Nighat Orakzai of the Pakistan Muslim League (Q), a staunch supporter of the Kalabagh dam, said the feasibility of Bhasha dam was not ready and it would take four more years to get it completed. She said only Kalabagh dam was the option available to the government and it should be executed.

Speaking on the issue, Minister for Local Government Sardar Mohammad Idrees said it was a technical issue and must be tackled in a technical way.

Initiating debate on the government’s measures to cope with the post-quake situation, Anwar Kamal Khan of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) said it had been opposition’s demand that the Centre should take the province into confidence about foreign aid sought for the rehabilitation of the quake-hit people. “Who will pay the interest – the Centre or the province?” he queried.

Opposition leader Shahzada Gistasip drew the attention of the house to the absence of the chief minister and the minister concerned “during this important debate”.

He said while the provincial government had asked the Centre to constitute a high-powered committee to deal with the rehabilitation effort, it had not yet constituted such a parliamentary committee in the province.

He asked the government to stop its “double talk” and form a joint committee, which should supervise the rehabilitation and reconstruction work in the quake-ravaged districts of the province.

Shagufta Naz of the MMA criticised what she called the “double standards” of the rulers, saying that while Islamabad had organized a donors’ conference to collect funds for quake survivors, it was purchasing VIP planes out of the donations made.


http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/31/nat29.htm

Check the two reports on water resources at http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/
One is by a panel of International experts and other is by the technical committee on water resources.
Gives a good idea of how our water resources are distributed.

Cabinet revives CCI: Govt to go ahead with construction of dams


By Ahmed Hassan

ISLAMABAD, Dec 31: In an apparent shift from its earlier position of soliciting a national consensus on the construction of Kalabagh dam and other water reservoirs, the federal cabinet on Saturday decided to go ahead with the plan even on achieving ‘sheer understanding’.

The government has also decided to revive and reconstitute the Council of Common Interests (CCI) immediately. Saturday’s special cabinet session was chaired by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said the CCI’s revival after an eight-year lapse was “a constitutional requirement” and disclosed that it would discuss all national issues, including water reservoirs.

Following a six-hour briefing by Wapda officials on Kalabagh, Basha, Munda and Akori dams, Mr Ahmed said the cabinet decided to go ahead with the construction of water reservoirs even on the basis of “sheer understanding”. However, Mr Ahmed said, the government would continue its efforts to achieve a consensus among stakeholders.

The minister said cabinet members had expressed satisfaction over their year-long performance and the prime minister had lauded them for their good work.

Sources said some ministers had spoken out against the adverse effects of big dams on Sindh and NWFP provinces following the briefing but the officials concerned tried to ease their fears.

Despite an earlier announcement, none of the four chief ministers attended the cabinet meeting. When asked about their absence from the cabinet meeting, the information minister said: “They were not supposed to attend the federal cabinet meeting”.

The cabinet assured anti-Kalabagh dam supporters that their fears and reservations would be effectively and promptly addressed and they would be given administrative or constitutional guarantees, the minister said.

He refused to give any tentative date for the announcement of Kalabagh dam’s construction but said that the president, cabinet and parliament were thinking in unison on the question of water reservoirs.

The cabinet is unanimous in its support for new water reservoirs for the sake of economic development, farming and electricity. It has directed Wapda to arrange similar briefings for provincial governments and officials.

In reply to a question about the fears of dam affectees in the NWFP, the minister said the issue had been addressed by the dam plan and it has been decided to settle the displaced people in model colonies to be constructed within five kilometres of their present abodes.

The minister said cabinet members were allowed to speak about their reservations in the meeting and a number of them talked about guarantees to the provinces opposed to the dam.

In reply to a query about the opposition’s boycott of the government’s briefing on water reservoirs, he said the prime minister had offered to include experts from the opposition to be associated with the briefing and express their point of view.

In order to give opinion makers a better understanding of the dams issue, the minister said, water reports had been published for the general public and briefings had been arranged.

He claimed that none of the three reports made public so far had given a thumbs down to new water reservoirs and that all members of A.G.N. Abbasi’s committee had actually favoured Kalabagh dam’s construction.

He said that a decision had not been taken yet on providing canals from KBD as Sindh had opposed the plan. He said the total estimated cost of 4 dams was not worked out but the estimated cost of KBD was $6.1 billion as indicated in September this year.

Mr Ahmed emphatically told a questioner that there was no military operation going on in Balochistan and whatever action was being taken was against those who target government installations and functionaries.

Speaking to the cabinet, Mr Aziz said that there was no denying the fact that the country was in dire need of more water reservoirs and that time for a decision had come. At present, he said, Pakistan had only 9 per cent of available water storage capacity and it had to build at least 40 per cent storage for the future.


http://www.dawn.com/2006/01/01/top1.htm

Demand to abandon Kalabagh project

Dawn Report

SUKKUR, Dec 31: Hundreds of activists of the Sindh Taraqqi Pasand Party took out a procession and staged a sit-in on the Rohri bypass near Kandhra for two hours on Saturday against the Kalabagh dam and the army operation in Balochistan.

The protesters, carrying placards and banners, were led by Nazir Soomro, Waheed Khoso, Zahid Shaikh and Narain Das. They marched through main streets of the town while chanting slogans against the dam and the Balochistan operation.

Speaking on the occasion, leaders of the protesters said the Kalabagh project was a conspiracy against Sindh. They said the people of Sindh would not allow construction of the dam.

They regretted that despite strong opposition from the three provinces, President Gen Pervez Musharraf was insisting on its construction to please Punjab.

Condemning the operation in Balochistan, they said it would spark hatred among Baloch people which would be dangerous for the integrity and solidarity of the country.

They demanded that the government should shelve the Kalabagh project and stop the operation in Balochistan forthwith.

DADU: Around 100 activists of the Pakistan People’s Party-SB held a demonstration for one hour outside the press club here on Saturday to protest against the proposed construction of the Kalabagh dam.

They were led by district party president Ali Mohammad Jamali, Ali Khan Soomro, Bashir Solangi and Fida Hussain Sakhirani.

WATER SHORTAGE: A large number of growers of the Dadu taluka held a protest demonstration outside the press club here on Saturday against the acute shortage of water in Malkani Phaka Daim waterways, originating from the Dadu Canal.

Led by Ali Nawaz Rind, Khadim Hussain Bhatti, Mumtaz Ali and Naveed Mallah, they alleged that irrigation officials were selling water to influential farmers.

They demanded that they should be provided their share of water.


http://www.dawn.com/2006/01/01/nat18.htm

Dam opponents baton-charged


By Our Staff Reporter

LAHORE, Dec 31: Police baton charged participants in a rally held by progressive parties to protest against the construction of the Kalabagh dam here on Saturday.

The police misbehaved with women protesters but they failed to check their way.

The demonstrators were led by Abid Hasan Minto, Farooq Tariq, Wazir Sahu and Mukhtar of the National Workers Party, the Labour Party, the Mazdoor Kissan Party and the Pakistan Mazdoor Mahaz respectively.

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s I.A. Rahman, Pakistan Communist Party’s Jameel Ahmad Malik and Pakistan Social Forum’s Irfan Mufti were also present.

After taking a round of the Lahore Press Club, they held a public meeting and condemned the government for its double standards. They said the government had allowed a pro-Kalabagh rally on The Mall but it prohibited the opponents from venting out their emotions at a comparatively less crowded area.

Minto said Punjab was being defamed by raising the Kalabagh dam issue which, he feared, would do no good to national politics. He said the army government on the one hand talked about moulding public opinion while on the other it announced that the decision to build the dam had been taken.

Tariq denied the impression that Punjab was in favour of the dam and claimed that most of the political parties were against the project.


http://www.dawn.com/2006/01/01/nat9.htm

Time not ripe for KBD: JUI

SIALKOT, Dec 31: Although the country needs water reservoirs, the time selected for the announcement of building Kalabagh dam is not suitable as the country is faced with several other burning issues which are required to be addressed on priority.

This was stated by Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) Amir and Senator Maulana Samiul Haq while talking to reporters at Daska on Saturday.

He said that some anti-state elements had made this issue as disputed adding that the government should take the nation into confidence before giving a final verdict on Kalabagh dam. — Correspondent


http://www.dawn.com/2006/01/01/nat33.htm

I think the KBD issue is pretty much a burning issue. Ever notice how the religious parties are always in their own little world out of touch with everything else that is happening in the county? So what issue is more important at the moment? Palestine??

MQM to support ANP on Kalabagh issue


By Our Correspondent

PESHAWAR, Dec 31: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) will cooperate with the Awami National Party in its struggle against the proposed Kalabagh Dam.

A press release issued here on Saturday quoted MQM’s central convener Imran Farooq as telling ANP’s president Asfandyar Wali Khan by telephone from the party’s international secretariat in London.

Terming the ANP’s Jehangira rally against Kalabagh dam historic, he congratulated the ANP and said both the parties were against the project and it could not be constructed because it was being opposed by three provinces.

He said that his party would not, in any way, support the construction of the dam against the wishes of the people of three provinces.

Mr Imran Farooq expressed his dismay over military operation in Balochistan, the Press statement quoted him as telling Asfandiar Wali Khan on telephone.

The ANP’s central president thanked him on his remarks and expressed the hope that unity among all democratic forces could not only force the government on deferment of such issues, but could also bury such issues once and for all.

Mr Khan termed the government’s insistence on building Kalabagh dam illogical and said the military operation in Balochistan jeopardized the country’s solidarity.

http://www.dawn.com/2006/01/01/nat48.htm

Consensus reached on big dams’

PESHAWAR, Jan 1: There is a consensus over the construction of major water reservoirs and any decision in this regard will be in the larger national interest, says Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli. She was talking to reporters at a book-launching ceremony at the Khana-e-Farhang on Sunday.

The state minister said the government was making efforts for taking provinces into confidence over the construction of Kalabagh dam and President Gen Pervez Musharraf would soon visit the NWFP as part of this campaign.

She said parliament and provincial assemblies would also discuss the issue, adding provincial governments’ reservations would also be removed.

She said ministers belonging to NWFP have presented people’s concern about Kalabagh dam in the meeting of federal cabinet.—APP


http://www.dawn.com/2006/01/02/nat13.htm

‘Kalabagh dam not a threat to Swabi, Nowshera’

By Our Correspondent

SWABI, Jan 1: Kalabagh dam project posed no threat to farmlands of Swabi or Nowshera districts, says federal minister for power Amir Muqam. He said this while addressing several public meetings here on Sunday. He said the people raising public outcry against the crucial water project were not interested in the country’s development.

The government, he said, was determined to construct Kalabagh dam to meet the needs of the country’s rapidly increasing population.

He also met local people to mobilize public support for the dam in an area considered to be a stronghold of the Awami National Party. Khan Abdul Khan Ghaffar Khan had called district Swabi his second home. PML-Q leaders had been successful in attracting a large number of people on the occasion.

Dispelling reservations voiced by certain quarters against the vital water project, the federal minister said it posed no danger to farmlands in district Swabi, adding it also posed no threat to district Nowshera. Pakistan Army, he said, had camps in the district and the government would never do anything to jeopardize these camps. The government, he said, was sure there was no danger to the area.

Urging the people to reject calls for agitation, the minister said the district would get natural gas supply within a month. He said that the government would provide Rs50 million for the gas supply.

He said there would be no further delay in the supply of natural gas to the region as pipeline network had already been completed.

He said that either President Musharraf or Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz would visit the district very soon and announce various development projects for the district.


http://www.dawn.com/2006/01/02/nat33.htm

Build it...I haven't heard one credible complaint about this dam...all myths and lies...and the funny thing is some people are actually listening to them...

Against the army in Balochistan?

What are these jahils ranting about? Do they not remember it was these same Baloch "Liberation' fighters that have killed many innocent Pakistanis? We should straightfoward slaughter each BLA fighter along with their supporters. Negotiations with terrorists should not happen.

Lets face it the pro Kalabagh club has supported their argument with statistics and technical evaluations (read the reports at www.pakistan.gov.pk) while the anti dam group has nothing but rantings, ravings and they even refused to join the debates on the dams.

Thus I am all for building the dam and fast!

ISLAMABAD, Jan 3: Construction of Kalabagh dam would necessitate immediate follow-up building of $1.1149 billion (Rs70 billion) Munda dam to save Nowshera from flooding. Therefore, work on Munda dam should be started before Bhasha dam.

This is crux of an in-camera presentation Secretary Water and Power Ashfaq Mahmood and Chairman Wapda Tariq Hameed made to senators, a ruling party senator divulged to Dawn.

Wapda claims that Kalabagh dam without left and right bank canals would have no utility in terms of cost-benefit ratio. This neutralizes Sindh’s conditional acceptance of a canal-less carry over Kalabagh dam.

According to the presentation, a copy of which is available with Dawn, the Water and Power Ministry and Wapda are of opinion that construction of Kalabagh dam should be taken up first, then that of Munda dam, then Bhasha dam and lastly Akhori dam.

Skardu-Katzarah dam, which has been termed by the technical committee on water resources as the best option for the country, is not a part of the government’s ten-year dam construction schedule. There is a big difference between estimates of Wapda and the TCWR in respect of availability of water in Skardu-Katzarah dam. The TCWR had put this figure at 35 million acre feet as compared to Wapda’s estimates of 27MAF.

The senators were told that estimated cost of Bhasha dam had gone up to $6.5 billion while that of Kalabagh dam stood at $6.1 billion. Another dam of seven million acre water storage capacity at Akhori in Punjab would cost another $4.4 billion and its construction should be taken up after Bhasha dam.

According to Wapda and the Water and Power Ministry schedule, construction of Kalabagh dam should start in 2006, of Bhasha dam in 2009 and then that of Akhori dam in 2015. Construction of Munda dam should be complete before Kalabagh dam so as to save Nowhsera from floods.

However, Bhasha dam has a clear edge over Kalabagh dam in terms of land to be submerged in its lake. Kalabagh dam would encompass a total of 110,200 acres of land while Bhasha dam would be spread over only 32,000 acres. Akhori dam is estimated to use 59,200 acres and even Skardu-Katzarah dam is expected to use 90,000 acres of land— much less than 110,200 acres of Kalabagh dam.

Again In terms of displacement of people, Bhasha dame has a big advantage over Kalabagh dam. Kalabagh dam would displace 120,000 people compared to 24,000 people to be displaced by Bhasha dam and 49,300 people by Akhori dam.

Skardu-Katzarah is expected to displace the highest number, 160,000 people, but its capacity would be more than the total capacity of all other dams. Its design-life is estimated at 1,000 years compared to less than 100 years each of every other proposed dam.

Regarding the NWFP’s apprehension that Kalabagh dam would flood Nowshera and Peshawar valley in case of unprecedented floods, the presentation said: “Munda dam on Swat river shall alleviate Nowshera flooding and back water of Kalabagh full reservoir only goes up to Akora Khattak”. It also says that installation of 4,800 tube wells in Sindh would address Sindh’s apprehension that its lands would go out of production due to control over river because it would affect only 7,000 acres of mangrove forest.

Wapda shows two different figures of 0.67 MAF and 0.76 MAF as estimated live-storage capacity of Munda dam and puts its power generation capacity at 740-mw.

According to a comparison, Kalabagh dam will have a water availability of 90 MAF and live-storage of 6.1 MAF. It will have power generation capacity of 3,600-MW and would have no logistic problem.

Bhasha dam would have water availability of 50 MAF and live-storage of 7.34 MAF and would produce 4,500-mw of electricity. Akhori dam is estimated to have 14 MAF of water availability, although its live-storage capacity would be 7 MAF. It would generate jsut 600-mw of electricity. Kalabagh dam would have no problem of power dispersal while power generated at Bhasha dame would be very difficult to disperse.

Wapda says seismic risk in Kalabagh and Akhori area is less than in Bhasha and Skardu-Katzarah areas.

Out of displacement of total 120,000 people, Kalabagh dam would force 78,000 people to move away in the Punjab and 42,000 people in the NWFP. It will affect 21,600 acres of barani land in the Punjab and 2,900 acres in the NWFP. Similarly, it will affect 2,900 acres of irrigated land in thePunjab and only 100 acres in the NWFP. In a nutshell, Kalabagh dam would affect 24,500 acres in the Punjab and 3,000 acres in the NWFP, bringing total of affected land to 27,500 acres.

Bhasha dam construction would require upgradation of 323-Km of Havelian-to-dam site road and relocation of 140-km of Sazin to Raikot bridge.

http://dawn.com/2006/01/04/top3.htm

Salam,

Kalabagh Dam: What the heck should we do???
Following can be done and should be done.

1. I think government should float tenders for immediate construction of Munda Dam on River Swat, so that NWFP should have no "technical" concerns regarding drowning of Nowshehra, when government decides on Kalabagh.

2. TEMPORARILY, the plan of constructing right and left bank canals of Kalabagh dam should be dropped. This will take care of Sindh's "technical" concerns regarding water stealing of Punjab. Later, when Indus's water storage capacity decreases and Sindh's water become inadequete, Sindh might realize how important canals and the reservior is. Of course reservior will be there, but canals can be built in 2015 or 2020 when there is shortage.

3. Government should change the name of Kalabagh. :) Beleve me its gonna work. Firstly, because Nawab of Kalabagh was a very cruel punjabi ruler and older people from smaller provinces kind'a get some wrong messages here. Secondly, majority of Pakistanis are uneducated. Changing name would be (even though silly-sounding) a psychological victory.

4. And finally (and very seriously) ISI should be involved in assination of separatist elements within nwfp, sindh and baluchistan. These elements, regardless of what ever project there is, would object.

You cannot please every body. So just play smart with them. Play some intelligent game. Unfortunately government is not really sure what it is gonna do about the opposition of the dam lobby.

Peace.

i think musharraf should simply go ahead with the construction. the PML is in majority and hence represents majority of the nation hence there is no need foe concensus....most of the people support the kalabagh....all of the educated people support it, the people in rural areas are not even concerned about it all they care is to earn enough in a days labor work to feed their children...the only people creating problems are the oppostion and their handful of supporters....why i say musharraf should go ahead is because of the views of huindreds of people on the jang website the link is this http://www.jang.net/vf/default.asp?PageNo=19
plus another reason is that musharraf has real power he can do it after him the dam may never be buit....time is ripe and i believe decision would be taken vert soon inshaAllah

Salam,
i think musharraf should simply go ahead with the construction. the PML is in majority and hence represents majority of the nation hence there is no need foe concensus....most of the people support the kalabagh....all of the educated people support it, the people in rural areas are not even concerned about it all they care is to earn enough in a days labor work to feed their children...the only people creating problems are the oppostion and their handful of supporters....why i say musharraf should go ahead is because of the views of huindreds of people on the jang website the link is this http://www.jang.net/vf/default.asp?PageNo=19
plus another reason is that musharraf has real power he can do it after him the dam may never be buit....time is ripe and i believe decision would be taken vert soon inshaAllah
That is true Asfar. I do think there is no need of consenses on this technical issue. Its like asking technical opinion of an uneducated Pakistani villager if we should go for Celeron or Pentium processor! They have no idea whats going on.

My point: Kalabagh is a must!

However:

We must satisfy them with smart logic. Without that, this stupid issue that has been created (especially because of mishandling of the governments) will further polarize the nation.... which is NOT GOOD! We, therefore, need some intelligent way out. The best solution would be the upper three propsals that i wrote (which are NOT MINE but of intellectual community commenting on Kalabagh in papers).... and then go ahead and start constructing dam with low profile (i.e. with not a whole lot of advertisement, shore sharaba etc).

But before you construct this vital dam, you must satisfy illiterate majority of Pakistan, because that is a call of democracy.

Any unilateral action would further polarize the nation. And i think Musharraf do realize that ! (which is a good thing).

Peace.

the government should have simply started construction....the opposition wine on every thing.... begininng the construction would bring about another one which would last for a couple of months and then die out too....but nevertheless i bet musharraf realises that concensus or no consensus it is time to build dams...and we would inshaAllah get the good news of construction beginning very soon

Looking at all these reports, I think so far that if indeed Kalabagh Dam is built it should be canal-less. The government should focus on building Basha Dam at the moment and meanwhile try to develop a consesus on KBD as to which way to go. Another Bangladesh-type scenario needs to be avoided at all costs. And also, Punjabis need to be taught some more respect for the other provinces. I especially hated how Cheif Minister Punjab wants to rush the project without delay. Shows he might have some stake in it.

Why? :bash: :bash:

Punjab = Pakistan! :cheers:

All the information which anybody needs about the proposed dams!

http://www.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk/media/Water/WAPDA%20Brief.pps

Dam man what are they waiting for?? build the dam thing already!!


Cheif Minister Punjab wants to rush the project without delay.
Well I think that's pretty cool. Construction should start immediately as the feasibility of the dams have been proved with technical data and statistics.

And here is the link for anyone who still has his/her head up his/her arse :cheers: :

http://www.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk/waterstrategy.aspx

Salam,

I still think we should start constructing Munda IMMEDIATELY, so that when Kalabagh is finally announced (in a couple of months), NWFP can be satisfied and the technical concern of Nowshehra is taken care of.

Also, it would also be a good idea to drop the plan for building right and left bank canals for the Dam. May be they should go for the reservior and the powerhouse now. This way, canals can be built later on, and Sindh would have no technical concern to cry on.

I dont think that to overlook the problems is a good idea. I know anti-Kalabagh lobby is anti-Pakistan as well, but millions of people that they mind-control, must be taken into account.

Dam is a must though.

Peace.

KHAIRPUR, Jan 8: Around 300 religious leaders from Khairpur and Sukkur districts, belonging to the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (F), on Sunday issued a Fatwa against construction of the Kalabagh dam. The ulema, led by Maulana Abdul Qayoom Halejvi, gathered at Aisha Masjid in the Priyaloi town.

They considered construction of the dam in religious, political and social context for two to three hours.

They exchanged views about construction of the dam and later issued Fatwa.

Maulana Halejvi said that as per the Shariah, the River Indus and its waters were the property of Sindh.

He said the province had exclusive right over the Indus waters.

Therefore, he said, construction of the Kalabagh dam or any other dam on the river and taking water through such a dam was unlawful under Shariah.

http://dawn.com/2006/01/09/nat32.htm

this is what i calld jahiliat....wat the f*** man...

this is what i calld jahiliat....wat the f*** man...

Another proof that these maulvis are a bunch of jahil baboons. :bash:

Salam,

This is really silly, because this is what i call the ABUSE of religion.
They exchanged views about construction of the dam and later issued Fatwa. Funny thing is, Fatwa is NOT issued after exchanging views with your buddies. There is a complex procedure in Islam for issuing Fatwas. Moreover, you need "Isnaad" (plural of "Sanad") from a well-known institution or teacher be able to give Fatwa on issues.
Maulana Halejvi said that as per the Shariah, the River Indus and its waters were the property of Sindh. Wrong. Indus is the property of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, according to even Islamic Law.
He said the province had exclusive right over the Indus waters. Wrong again. Most right over Indus is of Kashmir (where it passes the longest), then Punjab, then Sindh, then NWFP and then China. (based on its length)
Therefore, he said, construction of the Kalabagh dam or any other dam on the river and taking water through such a dam was unlawful under Shariah. 1) Shariah has nothing to do with the issue in this particular way 2) This religious "leader" needs to prove his ability, qualification, and right to issue ANY fatwa.... let alone this one.

Peace.

The dam has been cancelled by the government!

Stupid retards had no backbone to deal with these jahils. I mean take a look at the oppositions past records and then come back to me and tell me that this dam is going to ruin Pakistan.

yea what is this thing about altaf hussein also saying the idea of the dam has been dropped...has the construction of kalabagh dam really been dropped....

MERIJANPAKISTAN! on what bases are you saying that river is distributed according to its length like its more for kashmir then punjab. i dont think so incase you haven't read sharia law/islamic law which states that the river belonges to the part or area where it ends or falls with the sea, its not the property of the area where is begins, since river indus ends in sindh therefore its property of SINDH according to the islamic law/sharia law. SINDH should be one who decides what to be done not Punjab or any one else.

listen mardan indus does not fall in sindh it falls in an area which is a part of pakistan...and if the waderas in sindh are jahil and dont know that technically it will benefit sindh....if some jahil people are commitiing suicide because of their jahiliat action has to be taken.

Salam,
MERIJANPAKISTAN! on what bases are you saying that river is distributed according to its length like its more for kashmir then punjab. i dont think so incase you haven't read sharia law/islamic law which states that the river belonges to the part or area where it ends or falls with the sea, its not the property of the area where is begins, since river indus ends in sindh therefore its property of SINDH according to the islamic law/sharia law. SINDH should be one who decides what to be done not Punjab or any one else.
BASES FOR MY CLAIM:
O.k. Since you have asked for the bases. The reason for my claim is that i dont think we should be biased. There are several other options i.e claims by others. But distribution by length is very important and is quite JUST.

OTHER CLAIMS:
1) ON CONTRIBUTION: Punjab can say, "Oh well, We contribute 5 tributies to Indus (i.e. Jhelum, Chenab, Satluj, Ravi and Bias), therefore it should be ours exclusively
2) MOST USE: Punjab can also claim, "Oh well, We use the most irrigation land, and irrigation water, and we have the biggest Canal System, So it should be exclusively ours.
3) BY CONTROL: NWFP can say, "Oh well, We are the ones that have the control of the flow of Indus because of mega Terbala Dam, and we are the ones that store all the water Pakistan can store on indus. Thus, it should be ours exclusively.
4) BY ORIGIN: China can claim, "You know what, you guys can go to H---. It originates in China, so we should have exclusive right on the river.
5) BY SOURCE OF WATER: Kashmir can claim, "Well, we contribute the most of its water from our glaciers. Therefore, it must be ours exclusively".

NOW:

YOUR LOGIC:

BY WHERE IT ENDS: O.K, so if (For Example) the district of Thattah becomes a province (which can happen, if we make all districts a province, like many people say), then that narrow belt of Indus that passes through Thattah would touch the Arabian Sea. So does that mean, Thattah would have exclusive right on Indus?

SHARIAH: Now. Where in the world did you get that Hukum-e-Shariah from? Where is the underline Shariee principle?? I know Shariah a little bit. So tell me, where is the Daleel-e-Shariee on this subject? There is no Shariah ruling on this one. Uneducated molvies whose Fatwas might be unjustifyable in Islam are making claims on this (basically) technical issue.

EVEN IF YOU WERE RIGHT:
Shariah doesnt say that. BUT..... ! Even if you are right, like asfar said, Indus does not end in Sindh!!! It ends in Islamic Republic of Pakistan, which is a stronger position when it comes to Islamic Law. But again, you are not right because you have not given any proof of Islamic Shariee Hukum on this subject.

CONCLUSION:
I DONT think Kashmir has the exclusive right. All i meant was that Kashmir will have the strongest case, since it passes its longest journey in Kashmir.

THEREFORE: No single province has "shariee", legal or logical right over Indus. It is a constitutional property of the Government of Pakistan.... and it has all rights to exercise that right for the betterment of Pakistan.
HENSE: The issue is not Sindh's "shariee" right, but whether the KB Dam is a right decision for the betterment of Pakistan or not.

Peace.

now thats what we call an explaination....maybe you should learn a little bit to mardan

May I remind you that Shariah law is not being enforced. This is a good thing since these laws are quite jahil and should be removed.

I was just telling the truth, thats all. anyway everybody from sindh, balochistan, and NWFP knows that Punjabis are always after their own benefits they don't give a shit about rest of the pakistan. People from Balochistan, sindh, and NWFP are not crazy that they been opposing this project well over since independence. the people of the three provinces know that they will be deserted, punjab will take all the water in canals leaving nothin for the rest of the provinces especially for sindh. Musharraf saying that its beneficial for Sindh i think Its total "CRAPE", if the dam is built it won't take sindh, balochistan, and NWFP too long before turning into sub-saharan desert. If the punjabis and the government is too concerned about the future electricty and power why dont they built small dams proposed by government of sindh, balochistan, and punjab why KALABAGH DAM?

^^Ignorant post mardan.
KBD is supposed to be inside NWFP limits and there isn't supposed to be any canal originating from it which would allow anybody to 'steal' the water from it.
Just think of the dam as the water tank on top of your house. When there is water in the pipeline you fill up your tank to use afterwards economically.
Without the water tank you will only get the water when it will be available in the pipeline.
Same way without dams the water will only be available during high flood and monsoon seasons..and there will be nothing in the dry seasons. The dam will be a storage tank which will allow usage of water even in the dry season.
I think I can't explain it in more simple terms than this.

Only people you see opposing the dam are ignorants, who can't comprehend the technical facts which are presented to them, and our jahil nationalist leaders who put their own personal goals ahead of the country's and can't see anything ahead of their own dirty noses.

I was just telling the truth, thats all. anyway everybody from sindh, balochistan, and NWFP knows that Punjabis are always after their own benefits they don't give a shit about rest of the pakistan. People from Balochistan, sindh, and NWFP are not crazy that they been opposing this project well over since independence. the people of the three provinces know that they will be deserted, punjab will take all the water in canals leaving nothin for the rest of the provinces especially for sindh. Musharraf saying that its beneficial for Sindh i think Its total "CRAPE", if the dam is built it won't take sindh, balochistan, and NWFP too long before turning into sub-saharan desert. If the punjabis and the government is too concerned about the future electricty and power why dont they built small dams proposed by government of sindh, balochistan, and punjab why KALABAGH DAM?
Have you gone through the technical details of Kalabagh dam? If not then I suggest you to plz have a look at it before opposing its construction and let me tell you that small dams woun't do us any favour, we desperately need 2-3 BIG dams in next 5-10 years in order to survive and I have already said in my only post in this thread that political leaders opposing Kalabagh dam have their own vested interests and political gains in opposing it and they are not loyal to the innocent people who elected them, these corrupt leaders are over looking national interests for their own personal gains, unfortunately a vast majority of our population is illiterate and they even don't know why they are opposing Kalabagh dam, these innocent people are just being played by these corrupt politicians in opposing Kalabagh dam, it's very sad and unfortunate for us, our nation and our country..!!

i think mardan is one of those illiterates...

ATTOCK, Jan 10: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has termed the Kalabagh dam the future lifeline of Pakistan and said it will be built with consensuses, as it is very essential for the economical and agricultural stability of the country.

Speaking during a visit to a tent village set up here for quake victims, he appreciated the people of Attock district for showing their support for the construction of the Kalabagh dam, despite the fact that its construction would negatively affect the district.

Speaking on the occasion, District Nazim Tahir Sadik said about 22 villages would suffer loss due to the dam plan, but “we should ignore these small individual damages and give preference to the country interests, as it will bring economical and agricultural prosperity to the country”.

He said the people of Attock district and tehsil governments had extended great cooperation in setting up the tent village in Fateh Jhang and in provision of meal and other facilities to the accommodated victims on self-help basis.

About political activities, he said the district was a stronghold of the PML, as his group once again had won the slot of district nazim and all six seats of tehsil nazims with a majority in the recent local body’s election. He expressed the hope that the PML would win all the national and provincial seats of the district in next general elections.

He said the overwhelming success of his group in the district was a sign of public confidence, which he had achieved due to his four-year outstanding performance during the last tenure for the uplift of the district.

http://dawn.com/2006/01/11/top8.htm

i just hope construction starts soon

Salam,

Some of his claims are against the Principle of Charity (a basic principle of argument in any discussion, especially Philosophy), but i will try to answer.

I was just telling the truth, thats all.
Actually, i proved you otherwise by a logical conclusion. Therefore, the claim of being true does not follow your premises or basic logic. I told you that Indus belonging to Sindh is flawed argument by you. You have to prove otherwise, or else you can't really claim to be true.

anyway everybody from sindh, balochistan, and NWFP knows that Punjabis are always after their own benefits they don't give a shit about rest of the pakistan.
This exactly is what Proventialism is about. It is called Strawman's Fallacy. This is because you have a problem with an issue and instead of addressing that issue, you are throwing flames and garbage upon Punjab. This would conclude that you don't want Kalabagh because you dont like Punjabis. If it is not so, you shouldn't have written this line... because it exposes your disliking towards Punjab. I am NOT a punjabi, but i am an honest person. You don't have to be a Punjabi to be supporting Kalabagh. In fact, many of my Pathan friends curse these fundamentalist and illeterate politicians that have politicized Kalabagh because they cannot sustain their politics otherwise.

People from Balochistan, sindh, and NWFP are not crazy that they been opposing this project well over since independence.
Well, just to start with, Kalabagh is NOT from independence... it is from 60s. Secondly, EVERY major project (especially Dam) in the world has been opposed by a selected few! But never in the history of Pakistan has the opposition to a major project become politicised. This is because, we have "provincialists" that are essentially loosing their grip upon their people, as they come out of illeteracy. Most people oppose the project, because they are uneducated rural farmers, and have no idea of what is going on in the world. They probably dont even know that man has conquered Moon!

the people of the three provinces know that they will be deserted, punjab will take all the water in canals leaving nothin for the rest of the provinces especially for sindh.
Funny thing is that Punjab can STILL STOP WATER to enter Sindh and divert it towards link Canals, this utilizing it all in Punjab. It cannot do it by law, but it can (and it would) if it was an independent country! We have a water sharing treaty between provinces AT FEDERAL LEVEL!!! No Province can break this treaty. Moreover, how can a storage Dam divert water? Dont you think Jinnah barrage or Chashma barrage CANT (if it wants)???

Musharraf saying that its beneficial for Sindh i think Its total "CRAPE", if the dam is built it won't take sindh, balochistan, and NWFP too long before turning into sub-saharan desert.
I need your proof or atleast a logical conclusion that leads you to believe this....! You can't "think" just because you like it to be this way. You have to "think" what is logically or technically correct. So if you think, NWFP, Sindh and Baluchistan will become "Sub Saharan desert" ( :) which is in Africa!), give us either a logical proof or a technical proof.

If the punjabis and the government is too concerned about the future electricty and power why dont they built small dams proposed by government of sindh, balochistan, and punjab why KALABAGH DAM?
Because government is NOT TOO CONCERNED about the future electricity. It is "too concerned" about the future water shortage that will result because of excessive silting of Terbala reservior. Warsak or Kabul is already useless because of that... and Mangla is very near (unless raised). Terbala is nearing its life... and we don't even have enough storage, let alone backup.

Its always good to look at both sides of the picture. It helps, believe me.

Peace.

Salam,

And Oh (one more thing), just a little innocent mistake here ....
KBD is supposed to be inside NWFP limits Actually KBD is mostly in Punjab, which is probably a concern for NWFP, because NWFP gets Net Hydal Prophet (as Royalty) from Federal Government for letting Punjab use Terbala's electricity. Kalabagh would reduce that because Terbala's electricity would be consumed mostly locally then, probably in Peshawar and around.

I am not saying that this IS the main objection of NWFP, but it can be a hidden cause of trouble. My Khala's daughter works for NWFP cabanet on budgetary issues, and she tells us that that is ringing trouble bells for NWFP budget makers. But since i can't "officially" prove this concern, i will have to consider it as unrelated (for now).

Peace.

Kalabagh Dam will not be built

Staff Report

KARACHI: Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leader Altaf Hussain said on Monday that President General Pervez Musharraf has assured him that the Kalabagh Dam “will not be built”.

This is a great victory for the people of Sindh, Hussain claimed in front of a large gathering at the party’s Karachi headquarters.

He appreciated the president, prime minister, and Tariq Aziz, principal advisor to the president, for ‘patiently’ hearing out Sindh’s case, and accepting its logical stand on the 40-year-old problematic issue.

Hussain said that the success of Sindh was owed to the unity of the people and the courageous stand taken by the MQM, its workers, supporters and well-wishers. The MQM is the only political party in Pakistan that has solved this issue, he said. “The announcement about the Kalabagh dam is the first step towards the restoration of rights of Sindh,” he said and pledged to fight for the province’s rights in the future too.

He said that he had asked the president to implement the report on provincial autonomy of the committee comprising Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Syed Mushahid Hussain. “The president said that the committee’s work is very slow and that once the report is compiled he would issue orders to implement it immediately,” Hussain added.

The president informed Hussain that a few miscreants were involved in making Balochistan’s situation worse. “I have asked President Musharraf to catch such miscreants without troubling the entire population,” Hussain said.

The president has assured me that an inquiry would be made into the matter and the guilty would be punished, he added. The president has also agreed to meet a five-member team of the MQM to listen to Sindh’s problems and he would issue orders for their solution.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\01\11\story_11-1-2006_pg7_26

Musharraf in a press conference announced today that bhasha dam will be built first followed by munda dam, all dams including kalabagh dam will be built by 2016, ground breaking ceremony of bhasha dam in first week of feb

A great speech!

He made it so that if the opposition bitched they would look extremely stupid.

Win-win situation for everyone

By Mayed Ali
jang.com.pk

LAHORE: President Pervez Musharraf has finally opened the lid to a potential magma by cautiously announcing decisions on two most sensitive issues, construction of dams and the National Finance Commission Award, eclipsing the federation for a long time now.

The president was subtle and managed both the vital issues in a very tactical way. He mapped out his strategy in such a comprehensive way that he not only successfully resolved the problem, he tried to do justice to all the parties to the tussle.

And mind it there is no dearth of stakeholders over both the issues - the governments at the centre and provinces, the opposition everywhere and the nationalists. The president was articulate, to-the-point and his speech covered both the issues in entirety along with the rest he discussed.

While ending years' long debate on the construction of dams, President Musharraf announced the work on the construction of Bhasha Dam will commence from next month, giving a deadline vis-a-vis launching of work on one of the big dams.

This will be followed by launching of Munda Dam formally. Besides, he made it clear Kalabagh Dam would not be compromised at any cost. However, he, being head of the state and custodian of the federation, would not launch Kalabagh Dam till a consensus among the provinces was ascertained. In addition to this, Akhori Dam will also be constructed in due course.

On the face of it, the president has addressed the apprehensions of smaller provinces by announcing first the launch of Bhasha Dam as against Kalabagh Dam. Technically, the actual construction on Kalabagh Dam is expected to start before that of Bhasha Dam, keeping in view the technical progress made so far in both the projects. The actual work on Bhasha Dam will commence in mid-2009 if everything else related to the project goes as planned. That is, the preparation of tender documents and detailed engineering as well as additional investigation studies and model testing on Bhasha Dam will be completed in early 2008.

Moreover, the pre-construction activities, including the land acquisition and upgradation of the Karakoram Highway (KKH), are expected to complete in 2009 to be followed by the actual construction on the dam.

On the other hand, Kalabagh Dam can be launched instantly. All the actual construction awaits is a slight updating on the already prepared reports on designs and the tender documents. This process is expected to be completed in one year after the formal approval. So the construction on the dam can be initiated in 2007 after getting reports on the environment impact assessment and the process of bidding.

So, Kalabagh Dam has an advantage of two years, at least, over Bhasha Dam. President Musharraf's bid for evolving consensus would not take over a year, keeping in view his 'persuasive prowess'. Even if the matter is delayed till 2007, that is, inception of new governments after the scheduled general elections, the actual construction on Kalabagh Dam might start before or along with the actual construction of Bhasha Dam. So, President Musharraf has a couple of years on his side for getting on with Kalabagh Dam project, which he favours more for obvious practical reasons.

Moreover, he has luck on his side to ensure the establishment of 'suitable' governments in all the provinces and at the centre by 2007 so the possible remaining political impediments could be removed well in time. The all important aspect to Kalabagh Dam issue was the formal public announcement by the president, which he did in his speech. The loose plan has been put to effect, and that is it. The Kalabagh Dam project has been formally rolled. The construction of Munda Dam is a testimony to the same effect for it is a part of the Kalabagh Dam project.

Going by the facts, it seems the president has struck an immaculate balance vis-à-vis his commitments and assurances to all the provinces with a win-win situation for all parties to the conflict. He watched the NWFP's financial interests in shape of royalty by announcing both Bhasha and Munda Dams, he addressed Sindh's apprehensions of alleged expected manipulations by Punjab by announcing Bhasha Dam first and secured the Punjab's interests by spelling out loud his resolve on the construction of Kalabagh Dam.

However, the president, perhaps, deliberately shied away from the actual problem attached to the construction of dams, especially Kalabagh Dam. The president's speech was dressed with figures, calculations and advantages in favour of his point. The president also quoted the World Bank report to support his argument.

The real problem with the detractors of the projects is their reservations on the possible manipulations by Punjab once the KBD starts to deliver. The track-record suggests some of the reservations are not all that ill-founded. Moreover, the construction of dams and reservoirs just cannot be compared with similar ventures in the advanced first world.

In the US or Australia, the states enjoy equal rights and there is a lot lesser power abuse so the rights of all the states are secured unlike Pakistan. Had the president announced a constitutional protection of water, power and financial rights from all these planned projects, his ideas might have carried more weight for the Sindhis, Balochs and the Pathans.

As for the NFC Award, President Musharraf has taken a bold initiative by increasing the percentage of federal grants from 42.7 per cent to 45.33 per cent to start with. This will increase to 50 per cent in the next five years. Masterfully, the president focused more on the subvention grants instead of fiddling with the divisible pool, against which the provinces have serious reservations.

Till the provinces decide some workable solution, the less-privileged Balochistan and the NWFP would get a huge chunk of Rs over 9 billion each for development purposes. Sindh will get over Rs 5 billion, while Punjab will get over Rs 3 billion.

It will fetch the provinces an additional Rs 51 billion from the next fiscal year. This is really a great achievement, keeping in view the stalemate between the provinces since the time the next NFC Award is due. The president has deferred the issue till the consensus between the provinces is brokered. Again, the next general elections might have a key to this problem as well.

ISLAMABAD, January 18 (Online): President General Pervez Musharraf has said that all major water reservoirs in the country will be constructed by the end of 2016 whereas in the best interest of the nation Bhasha and Munda dams will be build first and he will inaugurate the construction of Bhasha Dam in February 2006.
"The construction of water reservoirs is a complex issue and a decision has been taken in the federal cabinet meeting that all dams are must for the economy of the country Bhasha, Kalabagh, Akori, Munda and Kuram Tangi dams will be built and as far as reservation of provinces are concerned, their qualms will be allayed," he observed in his address to the nation on Tuesday at state media.

President General Pervez Musharraf has said that the country was facing some challenges at the present and his address to the nation was very much necessary in the current state of affairs.

The president held out his assurance that he will do his every bit to change the public opinion on construction of mega water projects and expressed the hope the situation will run to normalcy after his explanation over the matter.

He said we want the countrymen to prosper and will take every decision in the best interest of the masses.

Referring to recent World Bank report issued on 22 November 2005, Pakistan has exhausted its water resources and need to immediate measures to build water reservoirs, as Pakistan only has capacity to store thirty days of water, India can store water up to 130 days of water, United States 900 days.

Pakistan’s current storage capacity is only 9% of the available water resources against World’s average of 40%, he noted per capita water storage 150 cubic meter, China 2000, Australia, 5000, US 5000 cubic meter, our economy will excel if new water projects are launched and completed.

The reports says that every new mega dam will add four to five percent to Pak GDP, if we built one dam it could add six billion dollars in our GDP, if this figure touches two we will get 12 billion dollars and if we will build three dams then the figure will multiply with three manifolds to eighteen billion dollars.

Pakistan, he said is getting 3 billion dollars revenue from Tarbela Dam, which is benefiting forty percent of our population.

According to World Bank report, the president said Pakistan can generate 5000 megawatt whereas we are only generating 14000 mega watt electricity against our requirement of 20000 mega watt electricity, this situation has forced us to produce electricity from oil, which is seven manifolds costlier then the electricity generated from the water.

"The developed nations are generating seventy percent of their electricity from water, and we should learn a lesion from them," he underlined.

General Pervez Musharraf went on to say that the people of Sindh are opposing KBD the most, whereas the people living on lower grounds give money and plead to their governments for building water reservoirs for supply of water to their lands, but in country of ours the situation is complete reverse. I am astonished over it, he remarked.

He mentioned the recent report of A N G Abbasi commission and said Construction of new dams is imperative for the agricultural and industrial development of the country. "I want that interests of all the provinces are protected."

"All members of the committee agreed that Kalabagh and Basha Dam can be constructed. One member has, however, observed that no diversion of water should be allowed from the dams. The Chairman of the Committee has observed that the construction of only one of the two dams, of which feasibility is available, can be started with edge for Basha Dam over Kalabagh Dam, " he added.

In our country three major river Indus, Chenab and Jehlum but still people are forced to drink contaminated water I constituted three committee three years ago in 2003, one committee is headed by Nisar memon, second committee is headed by A N G Abbasi and third was based on the report of foreign consultants on Down Stream Kotri issue all the reports are available on websites.

There is unequivocal consensus on immediate construction of new reservoirs. Water Accord of 1991 is sacrosanct and should be followed in letter and spirit.

President said that the second issue is Balochistan issue. I want to make it clear that it is not issue of Baloch nation. People are telling lies. They are spreading wrong rumours for their personal interests. Baloch nation is bold and are patriotic Pakistanis who want prosperity and development of the country.

He went on to say that a few tribal leaders have held the entire country hostage for the sake of personal gains. They are engaged in actions for the last thirty to forty years. They are undermining the writ of law. These tribal chiefs have put in place their feudalistic norms. They don’t want people prosper and become educated. They insulted their progressive Baloch fellow sub tribes. They got their beards shaved, he pointed out.

Kohlu package of Rs 1. 5 billion was announced. This all was meant for the economic uplift and education development of the poor masses. But they lobbed rockets in reply to it. These are tribal chiefs who are involved in the attacks on PIDC building in Karachi, Ichra in Lahore, rocket firing in Quetta and gas pipelines, electricity installations and railway tracks.

President underscored that Mega projects of Balochistan and development projects are running under contribution. Three Chinese friends were killed in Gwadar port. How tyrannical it is they are perpetrating cruelty with their own people. Sub tribes are being banished from their homes who are now living in Punjab and Sindh in miserable condition.

President pointed out that these tribes had employed one or two thousand militia men. They are paying them 6000 rupees per head. These tribal chiefs are doing so for two reasons i.e in order to suppress their own people and to put them in jails. They on the other side have set up three dozens farari camps. Order is issued to them from there and these militia men strike. These militia men are engaged in acts of sabotage in other parts of the country.

They extort money from the people which is a source of funneling money to them. Second source is coal mines which they have held in their occupation. They are undertaking foreign tours. We know them and deal with them well.

President said that we can not offer garlands to them in return for attacking helicopter of frontier corps general. I have been trained in a manner that I have to take action against them.

President noted that it was absolutely wrong that army interfered there. Only Frontier Corps is initiating action there. Action is being launched against those who have set up farari camps and held the coal mines under their illegal occupation. No siege was made of Kohlu and Dera Bugti nor the army had undertaken any operation. Only one battalion army is sitting in Quetta.

He maintained that army is not mad that it kills women and children nor such permission will be accorded. This is only targeted operation against miscreants, he maintained.

President reiterated that action was being taken against the elements who were against the development projects and were involved in creating law and order situation.

President while citing to national unity, national finance award, national development, prosperity, poverty alleviation and dams issue said that unluckily no government of the past succeeded in sorting out these problems. The burden of these problems fell on my government soon after its installation. It is imperative that these issues are resolved as any delay will detrimental for the country.

First of all we take NFC award issue, president said. There is issue of distribution of money by federation to provinces. It has two parts. First is revenue issue and second is some billion rupees are given to Balochistan and NWFP. 42.7 percent shares were given to provinces by federation.

President announced that federation was ready to give more share to provinces. It is ready to increase it to 50 percent. But the provinces are not agreeing on it. They don’t want to secure original amount from the federation. They are in clash with each other on the distribution of shares among themselves. No government could take decision on NFC award.

Therefore I had to interfere. All the four chief ministers and prime minister were called. All the chief ministers authorized me to take decision on NFC award. But when I asked the chief ministers to authorize me in writing, I very regretfully say that NWFP returned it with two conditions. President can not take any decision in this situation when the provinces are not agreed over it.

He held that clause 6 of section 160 of the constitutions empowers the president to make amendment in it. This amendment will remain in place unless all the provinces agree on new NFC award.

Therefore, I after consultation with the Prime Minister and team of experts have decided that interim financial aid which is granted by federation to provinces be increased in order to bring improvement in fiscal condition of the provinces.

The decision on amendment runs into two parts that is divisible pool and subvention, he said adding that subvention was earlier 42.7 percent which will now be increased to 45.33 percent. One percent increase will be made gradually every year in this respect. Therefore it will grow to 50 percent within five years. This way provinces will get 50 percent money from the federation.

On the issue of earthquake affectees President General Pervez Musharraf has said few elements were giving the impression that government of Pakistan has forgotten the quake affectees but I assure you that our minds, heart and attention and totally looking at the situation of the quake affectees and the strategy we evolved for quake affectees is still in practice.

He said the government, people and Pakistan Army are actively engaged in relief operation which, he added is going on successfully in all affected areas.

He appreciated the efforts being made by entire nation, NGOs and Armed Forces from Khyber to Karachi for the early rehabilitation of quake survivors and reconstruction of affected areas.

He observed that the world community responded promptly soon after the earthquake havoc, and funds made available by foreign and local donors would be utilized exclusively and judiciously for reconstruction of the infrastructure destroyed in the affected AJK and NWFP areas.

The President in his address said that the recently held Donors’ Conference had attracted participants from around 85 countries, including representatives of international lending agencies like IMF and the World Bank. Several donors promised soft-term loans payable on easy installments and conditions. He said international community has pledged 6.2 billion dollars whereas Overseas Pakistanis have send Rs 6.50 billion to Pakistan and I appreciate their commitment towards the people suffered from the quake. He said the government was working upon a successful strategy to manage resources, and is now implementing the strategy in a transparent manner, coupled with immaculate accountability. The entire procedure is computerized and all details of distribution of quake relief has been put on website, he held.

He pointed out that during his visit to Devos for attending Economic council conference on January 25 to 26, he will highlight the issue in his address.

President said that about five hundred thousand tents were needed for the quake affectees, whereas on government plea and looking at the situation of quake affected areas Pakistani nation, international community and factories provided eight hundred and fifty thousand tents, which have so far been distributed among the quake affectees. We have so far erected 605 tent villages in the country.

He also said that 1.3 million shelter homes have been constructed for quake affectees living above five thousand feet altitude. I hope these homes will be helpful for the people living at such a high altitude, particularly in this weather.

Some elements were fearing that epidemics might break out in quake affected areas and a second wave of death was awaiting people in the winter, but nothing has happened so far, I feel these elements are very poor sighted and narrow minded and they are deliberately trying to disturb the people, he added.

The president said financial assistance to the tune of rupees 18 billion is also being provided to affectees for reconstruction of their houses and business and we have so far not received any kind of complaints as far as distribution procedure is concerned.

The quake affectees will get rupees 1,75,000 (one hundred and seventy five thousand) in three installments so that they could build quake-proof homes in their locales and Armed forces as well as teams working in rehabilitation work will assist the quake-affectees to built their houses.

The president also said that government will also set up health and education institutions in the quake affected areas and they will be built with state of the art construction technology, he said and added government is evolving strategic planning in this regard.

http://paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=131453

im happy that atleast other dams have been announced...musharraf and sheikh rashid said all 5 dams would be constructed including KBD by 2016...but what the hell would happen if musharraf leaves before that ...

ISLAMABAD, Jan 17: The opposition on Tuesday termed President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s decision to build Bhasha dam first a ‘retreat’ and declared his National Finance Commission (NFC) Award ‘unconstitutional and illegal’.

Opposition leaders from Balochistan refuted Gen Musharraf’s claim that troops were not involved in any operation in the province and claimed that army was in ‘full action’ there.

Reacting to the president’s address to the nation, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal said “Kalabagh dam has proved another Kargil for the general”.

He said Gen Musharraf had admitted that fears of opposition parties that Kalabagh dam could be detrimental to the country’s solidarity were justified.

The MMA leader said the nation was expecting the president, being the army chief, would condemn the US attack in Bajaur Agency, but he kept silent on the issue.

On the Balochistan issue, the MMA leader said Gen Musharraf should tell the nation what issues had been discussed by Pakistan Muslim League leaders Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Mushahid Hussain with Jamhoori Watan Party chief Nawab Akbar Bugti.

“Why is the government not implementing the recommendations of the parliamentary committee on Balochistan?” he asked.

People’s Party Parliamentarians senior vice-president Mir Baz Khetran alleged that armymen were carrying out operations in Balochistan wearing the uniform of Frontier Corps. He said that had the army carried out an operation against those sardars who had set up private jails, people would have welcomed it.

He claimed that the sardars who had arms and ammunition were with the ruling party.

He said the decision to build Bhasha dam instead of Kalabagh dam was a victory of the people and the opposition.

Senator Sanaullah Baloch of the Balochistan National Party said Gen Musharraf had no right to impose the NFC Award on the provinces.

He said it was evident from the tone of Gen Musharraf that he did not represent the federation and he only wanted to impose his personal decisions on the nation.

The senator said that first Gen Musharraf gave arguments like a lawyer and then himself announced the verdict that the operation in Balochistan was justified. He said the president’s comments had “rubbed salt on the wounds of the Baloch people”.

“This is cyber age and everyone knows how the paramilitary forces have besieged the Baloch people,” he said.

He said now there would be stronger protests in Balochistan against the military government’s designs to grab the natural resources of the Baloch people.

PML (Nawaz) information secretary Siddiqul Farooque said: “Gen Musharraf has compromised the country’s sovereignty and damaged national unity and has not fulfilled any commitment made to the nation during his six years and three months long authoritative rule.”

He said that despite his statements about time for difficult decisions, the president had once again proved that he was neither a leader nor a statesman.

Gen Musharraf was an ‘usurper’ and he had no right to take decision on fundamental issues, the PML-N leader said.


Source: http://www.dawn.com/2006/01/18/top3.htm

KARACHI, Jan 17: MQM leader Altaf Hussain welcomed President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s decision to give priority to Bhasha and Munda dams and termed it a “historic victory”for the people of Pakistan, especially of smaller provinces.

He said this during a telephonic address to a gathering at the party’s headquarters soon after the president’s televised speech here on Tuesday.

According to a press release, he thanked President Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and the federal cabinet for accepting the people’s verdict against the Kalabagh dam. His addresss was simultaneously relayed to party supporters in Hyderabad.

“It’s a historic victory for the people of the country, especially Sindh,” he said. He said he was happy that the Muttahida Qaumi Movement had earned the credit for “forcing the abandonment of Kalabagh dam,” a press release quoted him as saying. He congratulated the people of Sindh who, according to him, had stood by the MQM in opposing the Kalabagh dam and said that once again “Altaf Hussain has proven that he means business.”


Source: http://www.dawn.com/2006/01/18/top4.htm

Salam,

Cool. For some reason, i did believe that Munda dam will be constructed before Kalabagh. (i did write it in this thread earlier, i think). I am glad Musharraf has taken a wise step. This will not allow NWFP to make hue-n-cry on Nowshehra drowning or some thing.

Moreover, i think all these dams are important. So its a good move by government... very tactfuly dealt!! :)

Meanwhile, another big thrown i.e. NFC awards have also been announced. 50% provencial share within 5 years is very healthy.

I think, as a Pakistani, i do am satisfied by his speach...! (even though i am honest on certain issues).

Good Job,
Peace.

i am glad that they changed their decision and hope that they will make constitutional that it will never be built.

trust me they will build it and it will be with you own eyes that you will see it

Salam,
i am glad that they changed their decision and hope that they will make constitutional that it will never be built.
Nopes. They didn't change the decision. The decision is still there.

We all know Musharraf said Kalabagh is a must. It WOULD Be built. We also know why Musharrf said Bhasha before Kalabagh....! Just to quite the non-sence of the opposition. The fact is that Kalabagh is ready to be build and Bhasha is still under technical study phase. We all know that Kalabagh will be the first one to be COMPLETED. Lets get over it.

Regarding Bhasha, i dont think its as important as Kalabagh. This is because Bhasha is too far up north, and no significant consumer market is there to utilize this electricity. Kalabagh is near Mianwali, Peshawar, Pindi, etc.

Also, it is impossible to put any thing in constitution that such and such dam would not be built. Constitution is a serious thing. Opposition on Kalabagh is a time waste.

CREDIT TO YOU:
I can give this much credit to you that i do believe that Munda IS A MUST before Kalabagh. This will make sure that NWFP remains calm (politically) during Kalabagh's construction. Apparently, Musharraf has reached a similar conclusion. This is a good news.

Peace.

if they been unable to convince people of Sindh, NWFP, and Balochistan since that idea came in like 40 or 50 years ago what do you think will make sindh, NWFP, and balochistan agree now. by the way musharraf is going to inaugurate the construction start in february, and he also said that they all will be built by 2016 but i am pretty sure things will be different and even if they do what they said i am pretty sure pakistan will fell apart and india will take advantage of it like they did in bangladesh.

Mardan, first of all this is not the same plan from 40-50 years ago. And 2nd of all while you continue to rant we will starve to death. 3rd of all this is not 1971 and we have nuclear deterrence and 1971 had special circumstances which were in a completely diffrent situation than it is now.

WB ready to fund Bhasha dam


By Our Staff Reporter

ISLAMABAD, Jan 18: The World Bank on Wednesday indicated its readiness to finance Bhasha and other viable dams but called for implementation of water accord and replacement of prevailing royalty payment patterns to provinces.

Speaking at a news conference, country representative of the World Bank John W. Wall, however, said the geological and technical studies of the Bhasha dam were not available and the bank had not yet analyzed its economic rate of return. However, he said, it was presumed that it would be a good investment.

He also formally released a report “Pakistan: Country Water Resource Assistance Strategy, Water Economy: Running Dry”, which has extensively been published in the press a couple of months ago. The bank will conduct the appraisal of the project, examine its economic rate of return and ensure that environmental and displacement concerns were mitigated.

He termed Bhasha dam’s cost estimate at $6.5 billion very old and said it was based on calculations made before the completion of its feasibility study. Similarly, he said the cost estimate of Kalabagh dam at $6 billion was also very old.

In his opinion, Pakistan will have to announce a National Settlement Policy for the resettlement and compensation for people to be displaced by the construction of new dams to qualify for the World Bank financing.

He said major investments in irrigation would remain a major challenge because of fiscal responsibility law that puts a maximum on the amount of public debt the government could borrow.

He said the economy was booming but the government’s abilities to mobilize tax revenue to pay for public goods remained low and there were many priorities for development in addition to water sector.

He said Pakistan needed to appoint a neutral water auditor.


http://www.dawn.com/2006/01/19/top3.htm

300m-long Bhasha tunnel completed: Musharraf’s speech written before quake: Rashid


ISLAMABAD, Jan 18: Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed on Wednesday said that the feasibility study of Bhasha dam had been completed while work on geological investigation was continuing apace.

“A 300-metre-long tunnel of Bhasha dam has been completed while work on another similar tunnel is continuing for conducting geological investigations,” he said in a rejoinder to a statement of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader and former NWFP chief minister Pir Sabir Shah that the feasibility study of the dam would take several years to complete.

Sheikh Rashid, speaking at a seminar on the need of reservoirs, said the government was all out for carrying out the construction of all the major reservoirs and ready to provide every assurance to those opposing the dams.

He said the decision on the subject had been reached after hectic and marathon sessions of technical experts.

He pointed out that the vested interest had allowed Independent Power Producers to operate which had been generating power by using oil. In recent years, he said the prices of oil had escalated and had subsequently affected the power tariff.

The minister said that all the five major dams would be completed by 2016.

Responding to an opposition’s charge, Sheikh Rashid said that President Pervez Musharraf’s speech on dams delivered on Tuesday had been prepared well ahead of the earthquake but was delayed for certain reasons. He said the country’s progress was co-related to the progress in Balochistan. He warned that no hurdle on the way to progress would be tolerated and all those elements posing a threat would be dealt with accordingly.

He said a vast majority in the province was in the favour of development and progress but a handful of sardars in a specific part of Balochistan had been opposing it.—APP


http://www.dawn.com/2006/01/19/top2.htm

Salam,
if they been unable to convince people of Sindh, NWFP, and Balochistan since that idea came in like 40 or 50 years ago what do you think will make sindh, NWFP, and balochistan agree now.
Because NO BODY CONVINCED THEM! The issue was politicised as and when ever it came up. The fact is that the majority of the people of NWFP and Sindh STILL do not understand what a dam is! Same is true for Punjab too, but in Punjab literacy is a bit higher. Moreover, THE ONLY PEOPLE OPPOSING this issue are nationalists who like to have an issue that will keep their politics alive. There is NO TECHNICAL OBJECTION that is credible! All the technical objections have been revised by the government (and international engineering bodies) and have been approved.

by the way musharraf is going to inaugurate the construction start in february, and he also said that they all will be built by 2016 but i am pretty sure things will be different
The construction on all the dams will be started as soon as possible. 2016 is the date when ALL THE DAMS WILL BE COMPLETED! Its not when Kalabagh will be built..! In fact, Kalabagh will most probably be completed before Bhasha dam!!! This is because Kalabagh is ready to be build...and Bhasha is still going through technical surveys and advanced designing phase!

So, just because the FORMALLY announce the beginning of Bhasha construction before Kalabagh, it does not mean that Bhasha will be completed before Kalabagh. The fact is that Kalabagh will be completed well before 2016 and before all 5 dams announced.

and even if they do what they said i am pretty sure pakistan will fell apart and india will take advantage of it like they did in bangladesh.
WRONG ANALYSIS! First, Bangladesh broke because of completely different set of problems! It was mostly an identity crises... and was fueled by India! In "West Pakistan", there is NO identity crises and we are NOT 1000s of Kms away!
Secondly, we all know that NOTHING WILL HAPPEN when Kalabagh is built. These political parties, they dont have any power over the government. They dont have any credible street power either! They will just shout for a while, burn some tyres on the roads.... and then get cold! The Dam however will be built and it has been decided!

Peace.

Yaar anything new? What's going on?