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Darwat Dam Project: Government plans to bring 25,000 acres under cultivation

By Ijaz Kakakhel

ISLAMABAD: Realising the existing potential in agriculture sector, the government plans to bring 25000 acres of agriculture land under irrigation through construction of Darwat (Baran) Dam project.

The dam would be constructed on Nai Baran near Thano Bulla Khan, District Thatta / Dadu at Darwat Gorge Sindh with total cost of Rs 3.656 billion and the entire cost of the project would be provided by the federal government through Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP). Apart from irrigation of agriculture land, the dam would also help in providing water for domestic drinking purpose in the area.

The project area falls in the Kohistan geological region which itself consists of different formations named as Guru, Rani Kot, Takhdro and Baran etc. All the rocks exposed in the area are of sedimentary origin, working paper of the project obtained by Daily Times here on Tuesday revealed.

The agriculture in the area was wholly dependent on rain. Due to fluctuation in the subsoil water levels in dry seasons, tube-well irrigation was severely hampered. The reservoir area of the Baran Dam was located near Thano Bula Khan in district Dadu. The dam is located in district Thatta. Nai Baran is a large river with the catchment area of 3,151 square kilometers. The dam site is accessible from Karachi-Hyderabad super Highway at kilometer 114.

The dam site is proposed at Darwat Gorge, which located near the village of Jhingri about 20 km from Super Highway. The project reservoir area has been seriously neglected in terms of public facilities, education, health, sanitation, communication, infrastructure and other utilities.

An amount of Rs 500 million has been earmarked for construction of eight small / medium dams in Sindh, including Darwat-pas (Baran) dam project in federal PSDP 2009-10.

Ministry of Water and Power is the sponsoring agency of the project and Irrigation & Power department, government of Sindh would be responsible for operation and maintenance of the project. It would be completed in four years duration (from Oct 2009 to Sep 2012). The project is related to the issue of water augmentation, water conservation, ground water management and need for additional reservoirs.

The Sindh province covers an area of 140,913 square kilometers. 14 irrigation canals off-take from three barrages located on the Indus river at Guddu, Sukkur and Kotri, having length of 2083 km covering culturable command area of about 13.24 MA with peack discharge of 150,000 cusecs. The total length of channels off-taking from these canals is 18277 kms.

The technical appraisal of the working paper of the project revealed that the construction of this dam was endorsed in the context of national strategy to harness flood water for irrigation, power, water supply and other purpose through construction of small dams and is one of the prime minister program of small / medium dams in the country. Prime Minister has also desired the quick response on implementation of the project on fast track basis for completion of the project in stipulate time period.

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