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EDITORIAL: Is Basha Dam no longer an option?

According to a report appearing in the national press on Friday, the Basha Dam has come under scrutiny because of its location in the seismic range. The site, says a Water and Power Ministry source, is located in the seismic zone where a powerful earthquake in December 1974 flattened towns along the Karakorum Highway (KKH) and killed nearly 10,000 people. Of course this was known when the Basha project was deemed feasible, but after the October 8 earthquake, the new focus on seismic considerations has revived doubts. The dam is located in Chilas, dangerously close to the Bisham-Battagram fault-line where the recent quake has wreaked havoc.

While WAPDA has repeatedly claimed that all its projects are designed with seismic considerations in mind, the word now doing the rounds is that the proposed mega-reservoir, Basha Dam, is a bad option. Considering the endless political opposition to the Kalabagh Dam (KBD), and the overriding concern of water availability, it has been said that Pakistan’s best bet was the Basha Dam and that for now the controversial KBD should be left aside.

Foreign experts declared Basha Dam the better choice on technical grounds. The height of KBD had to be curtailed to disarm fears about the effect of its reservoir on the Peshawar Valley. Basha Dam, with its proposed height of 920 feet, was to be the highest dam in the world, topping the highest dams in China, Japan and Colombia (425, 460 and 620 feet, respectively). The water storage and electricity generation capacities of the two dams have also been compared to point to the perceived superiority of Basha Dam which would store 7.3 million acre-feet of water (1.2 MAF more than Kalabagh) and generate 4,600 megawatts of electricity (1,000 MW more than Kalabagh).

Another contentious aspect of KBD has been the dislocation of people, with difficult-to-corroborate figures, ranging from 83,000 to over 100,000, coming in from different quarters. The Basha Dam site is located in a remote area where fewer people stand to be dislocated. Also, if the dam is built new jobs will be created in the area.

However, in light of the recent concerns about Basha being smack in the middle of a highly dangerous seismic zone, the argument about its superiority over the KBD project may need to be reconsidered. In fact, the very benefits that a project like Basha Dam promises would be compromised by building it in an earthquake-prone location. While the seismic considerations argument can be used against KBD also, the fact is that while Basha is located on the fault line, the KBD site is about 140 kilometres away from it.

Because Basha Dam has increasingly been viewed as an alternative to Kalabagh, a note of caution must be struck. One of the main problems with the Basha project is the high altitude location of the site which can only be accessed through the Karakoram Highway. In order for the project to be kicked off, 200 hundred kilometres of the highway would be partially inundated and would also have to be upgraded at a hefty cost in order to be able to deliver heavy construction equipment to the site.

Building the highest dam in the world, hence, comes with very high costs. To enumerate a few, in the case of a breach of the dam during an earthquake, a 500-feet high wave would flow down from its 920-feet height and destroy downriver dams and bridges and wash riverside cities into the Arabian Sea. With complete disregard for the greater risk, the height of the planned dam was actually increased by 33 feet to give it a larger water and power capacity than KBD. In fact, experts say Basha Dam’s capacity has been grossly overstated just to establish its superiority to Kalabagh.

Keeping in mind all these problems with the Basha project, the option of building the controversial Kalabagh Dam has to be revisited. Because KBD’s benefits are viewed as accruing to the Punjab at the expense of Sindh and the NWFP, the provinces’ assemblies have unanimously and repeatedly passed resolutions against the project and it is unlikely that they will accept the Dam now. While President Pervez Musharraf has so far favoured a national consensus on the issue, his last statement implied that he might give the go-ahead to both the dams, despite provincial objections to KBD.

Downstream Sindh has favoured the building of Basha Dam because it will have no irrigation canals and therefore will not “steal” water meant for Sindh; the NWFP has favoured it because it will not inundate any territory in that province. However, now we seem to be thrown back to the Kalabagh option, which is ready to be exercised. Considering that sub-nationalism in two provinces has become attached to it, the time for discussion and “consensus” has long passed.

The Kalabagh option has already been accepted by President Musharraf after having tested the waters of a futile public debate. The only difference now could be that Basha may have to be shelved till a new feasibility report for its relocation is prepared. Pakistan is in a much better position today to put together a package for those dislocated by the dam than it was when Tarbela was built in the NWFP. A more attractive package can be offered to the people of the NWFP, and then work may be started on a project on whose need the entire world agrees — given the projected demand for water in the country’s predominantly agrarian economy. *

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