Speaking at Sindh Policy Studies Dialogue on 'Water and Census Issues' a panel of experts rejected the proposed Akhori Dam, describing it against the interests of the province.
The dialogue was organised here Saturday evening by Sindh Writers and Thinkers Forum. Former Additional Chief Secretary for Planning and Development Sindh Fazlullah Qureshi, ex-Secretary Irrigation Sindh Muhammad Idrees Rajput, ex-Secretary Abdul Ghaffar Soomro, former bureaucrat Ghulam Mustafa Abro, Professor Aijaz Qureshi, Muzaffar Chandio, Noor Ahmed Memon, Nasir Aijaz and Manzoor Solangi spoke at the Dialogue.
They said the proposed project was part of Water Vision 2025 of Federal Government and its site was located near Akhori Village, 28km east of Attok and 40km west of Islamabad in Punjab province. The proposed dam, with height of above 400ft and length of 5.16km would have reservoir capacity of above 6 MAF water. It would inundate more than 30 villages and displace 50,000 people but hardly 600MW electricity could be produced.
They said that as per plan, the dam would be filled by the water spilled from Tarbela Dam during the flood season, while the Indus flood pattern shows that the water spilled out of Tarbela only after the gap of two or three years, which means even if the proposed dam received water in certain season, there would be no water supplies to it for a long period that would make it unworkable.
The consensus opinion was that investing billions of rupees on such a project would just be a 'bad investment' for not being economically feasible. They exhorted the relevant authorities to attach first priority to the Bhasha Dam, which was a consensus project.
The experts alerted that like proposed Kalabagah Dam, the disputed project of Akhori Dam would also widen the gulf of distrust against Punjab. They noted that revised PC-I of the Akhori Dam project included construction of Akhori-Rasul Link Canal that would draw Indus water like Chashma-Jehlum and Taunsa-Punjnad link canals, which was ample proof that Indus water would be diverted to Jehlum.
Discussing the census issue, the experts at the Dialogue cited the examples of manipulated house-counting in the past and urged the government to take extra measures for conducting fair Census.
They said Karachi in particular and rest of Sindh in general could afford further influx of people from other provinces. They said Sindh lacked infrastructure and employment resources even for its own people therefore the movement of people from other provinces and tribal areas must be checked.
The experts demanded that the illegal immigrants including Afghan refugees should be counted and registered separately and similarly the people from other provinces should have no right of vote in Sindh.
They called for implementing the Supreme Court verdict on illegal immigrants, utilising the database of NADRA for ensuring fair Census process, stopping the people of other provinces from casting their vote in Sindh besides taking certain constitutional measures like issuance of work permit to restrict their movement to this province.