WAPDA’s neglect destroyed natural resources of land, water, power thereby creating water, power, food shortages, besides flood havoc and silting of reservoirs

It is found that the Government of Pakistan and its institutions have proved incapable to develop its basic natural resources of land, water, and hydropower creating multiple catastrophes of water shortage, crippling load shedding, food shortage, devastating floods, salinization of land, and rapid silting of reservoirs. Over and above, there was long status quo in building a mega dam on the Indus.

 No dam is built on the Indus after 1974. No water management is done to modernize the 150 years old, wasteful obsolete, and incompatible canal irrigation system that wastes about 45 to 50 maf of water. There is no drainage system to remove and control salinity. Due to shortage of water inter-provincial water dispute is created simply for not implementing paras 2, 4, 6 and 14(e) of the Water Accord that requires dams to be built.

 Pakistan is basically an agricultural country. Its economy and survival depends on healthy land free from salinity, and on controlled river water. Pakistan’s rivers are highly erratic. Therefore, these direly need storage dams to control and regulate river flow. The Indus River is the only river of Pakistan where dams can be built. The Indus is highly erratic as its maximum flow is 1,200,000 cusecs and the minimum flow is as low as 9000 cusecs. Common sense guides to build 35 maf Katzarah Dam on the Indus besides Basha to completely control Indus flow including flood flow and use water usefully. This will control devastating floods in the Indus River causing death and destruction of human beings, land, and avoid losses of crops, houses, cattle and all sorts of infrastructures.

Similarly, there is dire need to build 8.5 maf Guroh Dop Dam on Panjkora River, the main contributory of Swat River about 6 or 7 miles on the upstream of Munda Dam, that is a single purpose power dam with live storage capacity of only 0.6 maf and gross storage of 1.29 maf. If Guroh Dop is built, there will be no furious floods in Kabul River to cause damages in Peshawar valley. This will also reduce floods in the Indus at Attock Gorge.

Similarly, rapid silting of reservoirs is a great calamity. Tarbela Reservoir has lost its storage capacity by about 5 maf in 36 years. The adverse effects of the loss of this huge storage is due to silting that has created inter-provincial water dispute as no dam is built after the implementation of Water Accord 19 years ago.   

Similarly, another crisis is created with India on the rapid silting of Tarbela Reservoir and the loss 5 maf of storage water provided in the Indus Waters Treaty. The storage created on the Indus at Tarbala was Replacement storage. This storage is lost. Therefore, the lost storage shall have to be replenished in the spirit of the Treaty, otherwise the Treaty would become redundant and that it was not the purpose of the Treaty. The lost storage due to silting must be replenished to keep it perennial, as Pakistan has given perennial water to India from the three Eastern Rivers. Who would solve this problem is a question?

WAPDA has failed to select dam sites on rivers to have the best capacity-inflow ratio so that it has a long lifespan. Similarly, WAPDA has paid no attention to watershed management in the catchment area to reduce soil erosion and silt flow to increase the life of reservoirs. WAPDA should select dam site on a river so that the upstream dam serves as watershed management infrastructure for dams on the downstream.

WAPDA has paid no attention to the saline, saline sodic, and water logged lands in the Indus basin that is gradually and invisibly being destroyed by the indiscriminate pumping of about 50 maf of the saline groundwater drainage effluent meant for evacuation. More than 60% of the irrigated lands are affected by salinity and sodicity to various degrees. The world’s largest contiguous canal irrigation system is without its vital component of sub-surface tile drainage to control salinity and keep water table at the desired depth.

It is surprising and shocking that 50% of 105 maf of diversion water into the canal system is lost due to seepage and system wastage. This loss comes to about 50 maf of water or more than 8 times the storage of Basha Dam. This huge loss of water is wasted in the 150 years old, seeping, wasteful, obsolete and incompatible canal irrigation system.

It is again shocking and surprising that Katzarah Dam on the Indus and Guroh Dop Dam on Panjkora/Swat river discovered by me in 1962 are ignored by WAPDA knowingly. Katzarah Dam has 35 maf of storage capacity. It is capable to produce 15,000 MW of hydropower and is a super flood control dam. It has a lifespan of 1000 years. Katzarah’s unique quality is that it will function as watershed management dam to submerge the world’s highly erodible soil in Skardu valley that is the source of silt in the Indus water and the cause of rapid silting of Tarbela and all downstream reservoirs. If Katzarah Dam with storage capacity of 35 maf was built, the Indus River would not have caused large scale human and other losses in the country. Katzarah must be built without further delay as similar floods are expected in global warming. The population of Skardu valley may first be settled around the huge Lake as China did for the Three Gorges Dam in settling 2.2 million people and then work started on Katzarah dam.

Similarly, if Guroh Dop Dam with storage capacity of 8.5 maf was built on Panjkora/Swat River, there would have been no flood damages and loss of huge human lives from Kabul River and Swat River flooding in Peshawar valley. WAPDA has foolishly chozen Munda Dam on Swat River that is single purpose power dam on run-of-the- river. It cannot  control floods in Swat River that causes havoc in Kabul River in Peshawar valley. Katzarah Dam and Guroh Dam will break the severity of floods.   

All this proves we are a self-destroy nation. It shows charlatans are handling land, water, power resources of the country for the past 35 years. The bad governance created crippling load shedding, water shortage, flood havoc, food shortage, destruction of land due to salinity, rapid silting of reservoirs, long status quo, silting of 6.6 maf of storage under the Indus Waters Treaty and inter-provincial water dispute for not building dams to implement paras 2, 4, 6 and (14e) of  Water Accord.  There is no coordination between various concerned departments.

I strongly suggest to shift WAPDA’s head quarter from Lahore to Islamabad as of IRSA. This organization must be located in the Capital so that it has close coordination with all other organizations. This white elephant must improve its efficiency and throw away inertness. WAPDA was created with the objective to develop land, water and power resources of the country for agricultural development to produce food for the rapidly growing population. This objective is ignored. No drainage project is executed to control salinity. No dam is built during the past 36 years. All this has caused current flood havoc and unprecedented loss of life and property.