Settling The Kalabagh Issues

The decision to build the controversial Kalabagh dam has been taken. President Musharraf has been unwavering in his resolve to go ahead with the building of the dam despite provinces’ reservations. A formal announcement to this effect may be made soon, thus paving the way for undertaking one of Pakistan’s most controversial development projects.

Initially, the president favoured a national consensus on the issue. However, in the absence of any consensus and owing to what he sees as the urgency of the situation, the president has now taken the decision to go ahead. By linking the issue of water shortage and power shortfall with the Kalabagh dam, the general has made a convincing case for going ahead with this project.

President Musharraf has been dismissive of those who oppose the building of the Kalabagh dam. He says that a purely technical issue has been turned into a political one and that some vested interests were instigating people against these projects, spreading baseless information about them.

Without discussing the merits of this assertion, all those who oppose this project have been painted with the same brush. Treating such a sensitive issue in this manner only makes things worse and does not help people understand any better why the dam must be built.

The manner in which the issue has been handled by the government raises a number of larger issues about governance in Pakistan. And these are matters that need to be addressed at the earliest. For one, little has been done to address the nationally-held notion - true or false - that the Kalabagh dam, when completed, would benefit Punjab alone. There has been very little effort to address the objections of the smaller provinces.

In fact, the absence of any meaningful debate on such a sensitive subject is worrisome. Many argue that the government’s interpretation of arriving at a consensus has been coming round to its point of view. Two committees were appointed to look at the Kalabagh dam project and also larger water issues. One was a technical committee, which comprised water experts, and the other was a political committee that was made up of peoples’ representatives. It is not clear whether the findings of these committees were taken into consideration in arriving at the decision to go ahead.

Here, the problem is not just of whether the Kalabagh dam is a feasible project. It is one of taking all factors into consideration before coming to a final decision. It seems this has not been done in the Kalabagh dam case. Senior politicians from the smaller provinces as well as some leading experts from the field of water management say that they have not been consulted. The government does not say what went into the final decision.

At this stage it seems that the decision to build the seven billion dollar dam has been taken by one man. From his comments on the subject, it is apparent that General Musharraf feels strongly for the construction of these dams.

While there is no doubt about the fact that Pakistan faces an acute and worsening water shortage problem and needs to better manage its water resources, the question remains whether the proposed Kalabagh dam is the answer to this problem. Another question that needs to be looked into is the feasibility of building such a huge dam instead of the concentrating on water reservoirs.

The days of big dams all over the world are over. The World Bank has been the largest single source of funding for large dam construction worldwide. Under its stated aim of alleviating poverty, it has promoted and funded dams that have displaced more than 10 million people from their homes and land, caused severe environmental damage, and pushed borrowers further into debt. Never hesitant to exact loan repayment in perpetuity for projects it has funded (even failed projects), the Bank has never been forced to recompense for the destruction it has caused to millions of people’s lives and the environment.

Large dams, whether built for hydropower, flood control or irrigation, epitomize the huge infrastructure development projects that have been the staple of World Bank lending throughout its history. The World Commission on Dams (WCD) estimates that the Bank has provided almost $75 billion for 538 large dams in 92 countries, including many of the world’s largest and most controversial projects.

Arunadhati Roy, the acclaimed Indian writer and activist, is in the forefront of the international movement against big dams. She is part of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) which is fighting against the building of a series of dams in Central India. Roy likens large dams to monuments to political corruption that are derived from very undemocratic political institutions. She gives the example of the Bargi dam, the first built in the Narmada.

Initial estimates were that it would displace 70,000 people; instead it displaced 114,000 and submerged 162 villages. Ten years later, the dam irrigates only five per cent of the land it was meant to service. In fact, it irrigates less land than it has submerged. Such examples are prevalent the world over especially in Asia.

The World Commission on Dams in a report says that both the multilateral and bilateral development banks played a significant facilitating role in getting Asia, Africa and Latin America started in the dam business.... "[They] have helped finance studies needed for dam construction, and lent money for the construction of the dams themselves. They identified development goals through strategic sectoral planning documents, provided resources and technological capacity and created basin-wide institutional frameworks to plan and implement dams."

Although the proportion of investment in dams directly financed by bilaterals and multilaterals was perhaps less than 15 per cent these institutions played a key role globally in spreading the technology, lending legitimacy to emerging dam projects, training future engineers and government agencies, and leading financing arrangements.

The banks’ portfolio of large dams is like a primer on the folly of damming rivers. In case after case the benefits have been far less than promised, and the costs in terms of money spent, debts incurred, communities uprooted, fisheries and forests destroyed, and opportunities lost have been far greater than imagined.

Another misconception that has come out of this debate is the belief in Islamabad that water that ends up in the Arabian Sea is wasted and should be utilized. It is wrong to assume that water should not be allowed to enter the sea. This is a natural process that should not be tampered with as it feeds into the Indus delta, which has a vibrant life and utility of its own. Already, the reduced outflow from the Indus into this delta has resulted in vast areas in on the coastal belt being rendered useless as seawater has moved up to create a serious problem of salinity affecting farmland besides playing havoc with the coastal ecology.

Finally, aside from the technical aspects of this issue, there are political aspects that have to be considered. Merely terming those opposed to the Kalabagh dam as misguided is taking a rather simplistic view of an essentially complex issue. If the Kalabagh dam is to be built, it has to done by evolving a national consensus and not bulldozing it through. Such a move has wider national implications.

As things stand, it seems that Pakistanis are unable to arrive at a consensus on anything. That is why the centre either keeps postponing critical decisions like the NFC award or shoves its solution down the throats of the smaller provinces, as is the case with the Kalabagh dam. Centre-province relations seem to be so fragile that a meaningful debate on issues of national interest remains a non-starter.

Of late, the official media has been singing the praise of this project. It says that the Kalabagh dam would store surplus water during the flood season and make it available for use during the lean season. This water would thus be used for sowing and maturing of the Kharif crops and the entire Rabi crops. The irrigation-oriented operation of the project gives the highest overall economic return. Thus, the full storage of 6.1MAF would be available for guaranteeing assured irrigation supplies throughout the year, including replacement of the storage loss at the three existing reservoirs.

Also, with its installed capacity of 2,400 MW (ultimate 3600 MW) the Kalabagh dam would add to the power system a very large amount of cheap hydro-electricity. In an average year, 11,413 million kilowatt hours (MKWh’s) of electricity would be generated at the Kalabagh dam. Further, as a result of conjunctive operation an additional 336 million MKWh’s and up to 600 megawatts (MW) of additional power would be generated at Tarbela. To put these figures in perspective, if Kalabagh was in operation today, there would have been no load-shedding in Pakistan.

Also, Kalabagh would reduce the frequency and severity of flooding along the Indus, particularly between the dam site and Indus/Punjab confluence, 300 miles downstream. For the riverine areas lower down in Sindh, it would enable the conversion of the existing ’Sailaba’ areas into a year-round tubewell irrigation.

With such advantages it has to offer, one wonders why it is so hard to convince the smaller provinces of the importance of building the dam. With the exception of Punjab, no other province is in its favour. One wonder whether the basis of the opposition is "vested interests" which the president points out, who are not in favour of the project only because of ignorance, or is there more to this?