LAHORE
Lt Gen (retd) Muzamil Hussain, who is the current wapda chairman stated that Pakistan wastes water worth Rs25 billion every year. He was addressing a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the premier accountability committee of the parliamentary secretariat, while he said this.
While apprising the committee, chairman WAPDA said that albeit Pakistan receives 145 million acre feet of water every year, only 14 million acre feet of water is preserved.
Claiming that the construction of the Diamer-Bhasha dam is necessary, he added that due to soil/silt accumulating at the base of Tarbela Dam, the storage capacity of the dam has decreased by 36 per cent.
Because of the continuous silting and sedimentation, the dam’s storage capacity has declined from 9.6 million acres feet (MAF) to about 6.6 MAF.
WAPDA chairman also regretted that only two dams had been built in the country over the past 70 years.
It is also true that, an independent Chinese consultant hired by Wapda to conduct a feasibility study on de-silting of the Tarbela dam claimed, “De-siltation of the dam is not a viable option either economically or technically, and may damage the country’s largest power house and reservoir.”
The official said the feasibility study concluded that instead of undertaking such a mammoth exercise it would be more economical to build a new dam of the same size and capacity.
The chair of the meeting also informed the committee that the cost of the Neelum-Jhelum power project was Rs 4 billion in the beginning. Now the project’s costs have increased to Rs 500 billion, he said.
Annually, about Rs 40 billion is repaid with regards to loans, of which Rs 5 billion consists of loans, while Rs 35 billion comprises annual interest payments, Hussain said. Total annual payments come to about Rs 57 billion when the project cost is added to this amount, the chairman told the committee.
Rs 152 billion was paid last year, he said, which was separate from the total debt cost.
Opposition leaders have also been bringing the water wastage and high costs issue in the limelight. PPP’s Syed Naveed Qamar said the government had passed on the costs of water supply onto citizens via imposition of tariffs. Awami Muslim League head Sheikh Rashid took issue with work on the Neelum-Jhelum power project. Rashid said Rs 41 billion had been paid against, “The world’s only project initiated without conducting a geological survey,” as it stood at the fault line for an earthquake. The area where the project is situated was struck by an earthquake in 2005, a year after work began on it, he said.
The high costs of energy and the current water wastage does not bode well for the country’s economy and the energy crises in the long run is predicted to only worsen if such malpractice and ignorance continues.
