WAPDA gave tailored TOR for Kalabagh Dam that made it infeasible; Consultants report reveals

The faults of KBD pointed out by Project Consultants

Politicians pro and against Kalabagh Dam (KBD) cry vaguely without knowing the tailored design criteria given by WAPDA to the Kalabagh Project Consultants, a joint venture of Binnie and Partners. The Project Consultants disagreed with restricted mid-level sluicing hydraulic design for 50 flood days given by WAPDA, as that will not evacuate silt. The Project Consultants further said; it will create unacceptable backwater flow and flooding in Kabul River. They recommended unrestricted low-level sluicing Hydraulic design for 100 flood days, like in a barrage. As such, Kalabagh Dam is purely technical problem. The nation may be informed of this fact to end political controversy created by WAPDA.

 Similarly, the responsible engineers make irrelevant statements about KBD without reading and understanding its full feasibility report and knowing its several serious faults pointed out by the Project Consultants because the Consultants were given a vary wrong TOR to follow. These serious faults are about weak foundation that limited the height of hydraulic structure to 160 feet against 260 feet as dictated by WAPDA. The consultants were directed to adopt earthquake intensity of 7, against 8.4 experienced in 2005.

The restricted mid-level sluicing hydraulic design for 50 flood days, require the reservoir to be emptied. The reservoir will therefore be emptying and re-filling. This process will take about four months. Therefore, the power generation would be reduced to 1450 MW. WAPDA therefore directed the Project consultants to support it by 2000 MW of Thermal power plant to make it 3450 MW. Refer Main Project Report 1988, page 4.8, para 4.39, 4.4 and 4.1, diagram No; 10).

The Project Consultants warned of rapid silting of reservoir and unacceptable backwater flow in Kabul River inundating vast areas of Peshawar valley. This is because of the wrong and tailored requirements given to Consultants by WAPDA in the TOR or as subsequently directed to do what WAPDA wants. All faults created are due to wrong TOR that makes the project infeasible.

 WAPDA wrongly forced tailored design criteria for KBD in the TOR on the Consultants in the initial stage of the project and before investigations. Other far batter dam sites on the Indus were ignored. This is astonishing, as no one will do that unless with a specific purpose.

The tailored TOR is; 

“Basically the design criteria were set during the initial appraisal of scheme and development out line design. These were based on the requirements of the client through the terms of reference or subsequent instructions”. (Vol: N, Appendix N)

The TOR was given to achieve specific objective of taking a high-level left bank canal 170 miles long with 15000 cusecs discharge to feed Jehlum River system. WAPDA wrongly instructed the Consultants to create a reservoir up to elevation 925 and provide restricted mid-level sluicing hydraulic design for 50 flood days against 100 flood days. WAPDA wrongly assumed that it would evacuate silt. The Project consultants clearly said “silt would only be evacuated by providing unrestricted low-level sluicing hydraulic design for 100 flood days” like in a barrage. Please note few relevant excerpts from the Kalabagh Project Feasibility Report.;

“In principle there is no specific mode of operation that must be adhered to each year in order to sluice sediment from Kalabagh Reservoir but the lower the drawdown level, the longer this level is maintained and the higher the flows then the more effective the sluicing will be”. (KBD Project Report Main, 1988) page 3.8, para 3.27) 

The Project Consultants findings in the feasibility report clearly indicate building of a barrage as on run-of-the-river to evacuate silt by unrestricted low-level sluicing for 100 days. The project is NOT flood control. Consultants gave several excerpts on silting problems upstream of the Attock Gorge, creating sever backwater flow and flooding in Kabul River; Another excerpt is;

“The high sediment load carried by the Indus at Kalabagh has an important bearing on the design of Kalabagh and on the operation rules for the reservoir. If a high proportion of sediment is trapped the storage volume would rapidly reduce with the loss of irrigation benefits derived from storage. Such sedimentation could eventually also cause unacceptable backwater effects”. (Project Report Main, 1988. page 3.5, para 3.17)

The above excerpt shows that removal of silt from the reservoir depends on its hydraulic design that requires a barrage to create run-of-the-river conditions to evacuate silt otherwise it will cause rapid silting and unacceptable backwater flow and flooding of Peshawar valley. This shows KBD will lose irrigation benefits as the reservoir will rapidly silt up. KBD draws 540 million tons of silt from a catchment area of 110500 squire miles that comes to 0.3 maf by volume. This gives a lifespan of about 20 years.

Other excerpts from the project feasibility reports are;   

“Upstream of Attock gorge the flood level are sensitive to the amount of sediment so that flood risk will increase with time”

This excerpts shows that after silting, backwater flow and flood risk will increase in Kabul River of Peshawar valley. This shows Kalabagh Dam is NOT flood control and gives no protection to Peshawar valley. The Consultants recommended  hydraulic design, as a run-of-the-river project.

“In the long run the generation of power will be on run-of-the-river”.

This excerpt shows KBD reservoir will silt up and power generation will be on run-of-the-river. This means Kalabagh ultimately will not be even an irrigation project. KBD is not a flood control project. This shows the only purpose of Kalabagh Dam is to take off the proposed left bank canal. The other excerpt is;

“No immediate solution for sediment management seems to be practically viable”.

The Consultants clearly admitted there is no solution to remove silt from upstream of the Attock gorge of the reservoir. This shows lifespan of reservoir is very short. The poorest capacity-inflow ratio of Kalabagh Dam at this site indicates the same.

For these reasons, the Project report of Kalabagh was kept secret from the provinces. During

a meeting at Peshawar with the then Member (Water) WAPDA, the then Additional Chief Secretary Khalid Aziz demanded the Feasibility Report but Member Water WAPDA said ‘It is a secret document”. The ACS insisted that nothing is secret from the Government of NWFP and ultimately got a copy of the report.

I remained Chairman IRSA and spent 6 years in IRSA doing research and investigation in water resources development. I therefore know what Kalabagh Dam is. WAPDA sticking to KBD is a great blunder, as it created status quo for 36+10=46 years and avoided to build the unique Katzarah Dam with storage capacity 6 times more than KBD.

 The delay created inter-provincial water dispute for not implementing its storage based paras 2, 4. 6. and 14 (e). The current exceptionally high floods that created unprecedented havoc would have been mitigated if Katzarah Dam with storage capacity of 35 maf was built in time as proposed.

Pretension that Kalabagh Dam is flood control is wrong

It is utterly surprising that no responsible engineer or politician has gone through the flawed Kalabagh Dam Project Feasibility Report prepared by the Project Consultants in 27 volumes. The Consultants themselves have pointed out many serious flaws caused due to the tailored TOR as indicated by me above. Besides this, it is not a flood control dam but a dam on-run-of-the–river dam.

If Kalabagh Dam had been built before the current super floods, the entire Peshawar valley up to Pabbi and beyond would have been inundated. Moreover, there would have been danger to the structure of the dam itself as its foundation was weak for 260 feet high dam.

Peshawar valley would have been then the victim of multiple floods fury from Swat River, Panjkora River, Kabul River, and Indus Rivers. Indus River floods would have devastated Peshawar valley from its backwater flow and flooding the entire valley. The adverse effects of floods would have been  more sever after the construction of Kalabagh Dam, damming the flow of the Indus and aggravating backwater flow and heading up conditions at Attock gorge.

The effect of backwater flow at Attock gorge would have been exactly as if a dam was built at the Attock gorge. The devastation would have been beyond imagination affecting area up to elevation 975. The floodwater might have overtopped the crest of the dam. KBD Consultants reported that in 1929, the flood level was 951 feet and in 1841 it was 975 feet. We must therefore build Katzarah Dam on the Indus, Guroh Dop Dam on Punjkora River, Kalam Dam on Swat River to mitigate similar floods hitting the area in future. It is very likely such floods may come again due to global warming and climate change.

Alternative to Kalabagh Dam

I can suggest non-controversial, long lifespan, cheap alternative for KBD with a unique design of a low dam-cum-barrage at a site about 2 or 3 miles upstream of Kalabagh Dam site on the Indus River. It will create storage of 2.5 maf to 3.0 maf of water that would be filled 3 times a year and generate hydropower on run-of-the-river between 2500 MW to 6500 MW. No land acquisition and no land compensation is involved as the storage would be confined to the Indus River valley. It will be a non-controversial short-term project with one fraction of the cost of KBD. It will function as “balancing reservoir”.