Uninspiring
Dam Management
By Dr Q. Isa Daudpota
Islamabad, Pakistan
General Musharraf and his dam
brigade shouting for large new dams ought to first
begin showing that they can manage small dams,
particularly those they themselves get water from.
If they cannot even fix the management of a nearby
small dam and canal what hope is there that they
will take care of a distant Sindh's interests?
As a Sindhi I get asked by Punjabis about our
reservations about the Kalabagh project. It is
largely the lack of trust, I tell them, that prevents
the lower riparian from taking the word of the
central government. Having been tricked so often,
General Pervez Musharraf's 'guarantees' and his
promises of fairness don't hold water. Trust comes
from seeing fair actions and not mere words.
To the current lack of trust between provinces,
one must add the hurdles due to general mismanagement
and incompetence. In matters such as water supply
schemes, as in other large projects, this means
enormous waste.
Take the case of Khanpur Dam reservoir whose location
was chosen in the 1960s by a dictator —
against technical advice — to provide water
for Islamabad. He seemed more interested in submerging
the ancestral home of a rival landlord that was
located where the reservoir now stands! According
to a Japanese report of year 2000, more than 14
million gallons of water seeps into the ground
due to the wrong site selection. The loss is more
than what Islamabad gets from the Simly Dam —
the other major source of Islamabad's water.
Arbitrary, wasteful decisions have continued to
be made. In 1986, Japanese technical experts presented
three alternatives to the ECNEC, the government's
top decision-making body, for conveying water
from Khanpur to Rawalpindi and the capital.
Alternative 3, which involved the construction
of a water tunnel through the Margalla was the
cheapest. It also required significantly lower
operating and maintenance costs. [This should
not be confused with the tunnel proposed by the
builders' mafia last year.] It was strongly recommended
by the JICA, the WAPDA and the CDA. Perversely,
it was rejected in favor of Alternative 1, which
requires lifting water by over 400 feet at a huge
energy cost.
A politician from Rawalpindi, also a vocal member
of the current government, sponsored a motion
then in the puppet parliament and influenced ECNEC
into choosing Alternative 1. This was on the flimsy
pretext that this alternative required 20 percent
less time to complete — five years instead
of six.
"I strongly feel that this decision [to go
with Alternative 1] is not technically sound and
would affect not only the present inhabitants
[in the 1980s] of the twin cities [Rawalpindi
and Islamabad] but also future generations,"
protested Jam Nadir Khan, the CDA chairman, in
April 1986 shortly after ECNEC's decision.
He wrote to the finance minister and prime minister
Muhammad Khan Junejo suggesting that if a change
could be made "then Islamabad should be de-linked
from the joint project with Rawalpindi and permitted
to develop an independent short tunnel option
[Margalla Tunnel] that has been under study."
Such strong words are not often associated with
bureaucrats writing to their superiors, and indicate
therefore the strength of feelings that ran against
the plan at least in the CDA. Mr Khan's three-year
term of office ended on May 1986. His tenure was
not extended.
It may be noted that a water tunnel still makes
sense. It would not only save money but also end
the need to bring water from the Indus and Jhelum
rivers, which will entangle the Indus Rivers System
Authority (ISRA), the inter-provincial water distribution
commission, in further disputes.
The left bank canal from Kanpur Dam that was to
provide 51 million gallons a day (MGD) to Rawalpindi
and Islamabad can only manage 23 MGD although
it opened as late as 2002. The canal also supplies
water for agriculture to NWFP and Punjab and passes
through a secret defense complex. At Khanpur Dam,
its source, 236 MGD (440 cubic ft per second)
water is released into the leaky canal threatened
also by stone crushing operations all along its
route that dump their debris into it.
It is important that the Joint Water Board (JWB),
in charge of Khanpur Dam, forms a strong inspection
team (with reporting line to top government officials)
that can regularly recommend and oversee maintenance
of the dam as well as the canals. So far, the
JWB seems to have been quite ineffective in matters
related to the canal. It has failed, for example,
to recover water charges from the users. The NWFP
owes Rs 163 million, Punjab Rs 139 million and
the CDA Rs 79 million. Rawalpindi does not pay
for the water directly to Khanpur but is billed
by the CDA.
It may be noted that ECNEC had planned to recover
the capital cost of the dam (Rs 1.4 billion) by
2006 from user charges along with the operation
and maintenance cost (Rs 10 million a year). To
date the collection has come to only Rs 635 million
— nearly Rs 800 million short. Since they
are getting a lot less water on account of poor
management than originally promised, the provinces
have reneged on the maintenance of their part(s)
of the 19-kilometre canal and refuse to pay the
water bills!
So General Musharraf and his dam brigade shouting
for large new dams ought to first begin showing
that they can manage small dams, particularly
those they themselves get water from. If they
cannot even fix the management of a nearby small
dam and canal what hope is there that they will
take care of a distant Sindh's interests?
(The author is an environmentalist with particular
interest in water issues)
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