KALA BAGH DAM - 3C Connect Convey Convince 4.91

The Kala bagh dam is a proposed hydroelectric dam on the Indus River at Kala bagh in Mianwali District of the Punjab province in Pakistan. The project has been highly debated and deemed a necessity since its inception.
In December 2004, General Pervez Musharraf, President of Pakistan, announced that he would build the dam in the larger interest of Pakistan. On May 26, 2008, Federal Minister for Water and Power of Pakistan, Raja Pervez Ashraf, said that the "Kalabagh Dam would not be constructed" and the project has been cancelled. He said due to the "opposition from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and other stakeholders, the project was no longer feasible". However, after the worst flood (2010) in Pakistan, the prime minister of Pakistan, Yousaf Raza Gilani, stated that the devastation of floods would be less if Kalabagh dam were built.
Bashir A. Malik, former chief technical advisor of the United Nations and World Bank, has said "Sindh and Pakhtunkhwah would become drought areas in the years to come, if Kalabagh Dam was not built." At the same time former KPK Chief Minister Shamsul Mulk has stated that the "Kalabagh Dam would be helpful in erasing poverty from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, as it would irrigate 800,000 acres of cultivable land that is located 100-150 feet above the level of River Indus." Kalabagh Dam would provide 6.5 million acre feet of water to cultivate seven million acres of currently barren land. This is in addition to the 3,800 MW of electricity it would provide. In response to the push towards side-lining Kalabagh altogether in favor of the Basha Dam project, Engineer Anwer Khurshid stated that "Basha Dam is no substitute for Kalabagh dam not because of its altitude which is high enough, but because no irrigation canals can be taken out from it because of the hilly terrain".
Other experts who have strongly supported the construction of the Kalabagh dam at the "Save Water Save Pakistan" Forum include: Dr Salman Shah, former finance minister, Abdul Majeed Khan, TECH Society president, Shafqat Masood, former IRSA chairman, Qayyum Nizami, former minister of state, Prof Abdul Qayyum Qureshi, former vice chancellor of Islamia University, Bahawalpur, Dr Muhammad Sadiq, agricultural scientist, M Saeed Khan, former GM of Kalabagh Dam Project, Mansoor Ahmed, former MD of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission Foundation and Jameel Gishkori, among others. The participants of Save Water Save Pakistan Forum session demanded in their recommendations implementation on building five dams, including Munda dam, Kurram Tangi dam, Akhori dam and Kalabagh dam, at least by 2025 to store water and generate electricity to meet the demand.