Kalabagh Dam
By Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd.)
Westridge, Rawalpindi
The controversy on the construction of the Kalabagh Dam has been raging on since Zia ul Haq’s period and all successive governments have failed to resolve the issue. The ANP fears that the reservoir lake would submerge most of the land in the KPK province, including the city of Nowshera , while the Sindhis apprehend that as lower riparian they will be deprived of their share of water from the Indus.
Both provinces think that only Punjab will gain from the project. The project is neither fully abandoned nor appears to be resuming in the near future and this state of uncertainty has cost the nation heavily, both in terms of the time lost and the money spent on it so far. A simple technical matter has been un-necessarily turned into a political issue.
I think the politicians are not the right people to decide such technical matters and it should be left purely to the professionals and technical experts to arrive at a decision about the fate of the proposed dam. As a first step, let there be a series of open debates/discussions on TV between panels of experts, the exponents and the opponents of the Dam so that the entire nation becomes aware of its details and resultant implications thoroughly. I am sure the debate will help a great deal in forming a general opinion of the masses, who will then prevail upon their representatives to take the correct decision.
Unfortunately, I don’t know how our politicians think that the parliament can take a decision about any matter whether it falls within its purview or not. A case in point - Parliament declaring Qadiyanis as non-Muslims - a matter entirely religious that could and should not have been decided by the count of vote. It was a matter purely for the religious scholars – I mean real scholars – to decide.
Let the nation be the ultimate judge whether to have or not to have the Kalabagh Dam.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
