Balochistan: GWADAR WITHOUT WATER

The Chief Minister had declared Gwadar as the winter capital of Balochistan with a view to increase its importance and attract foreign and domestic investment and also by making the Deep Water Port functional, at least partial functional by diverting part of the state trading from Karachi to Gwadar Port. However, Gwadar is without drinking water. Local residents staged a noisy demonstration by blocking the main Airport Road in protest against non availability of water for people of Gwadar. The Ankara Dam reservoir had gone dry in absence of substantial rains in its catchment area or in the whole region for the past many months or a year. The Ankara Kaur Dam was designed by the NESPAK engineers and it was supposed to silt up in 50 years. The NESPAK design was so defective and faulty that the reservoir of the dam had silted up in less than 25 years leaving minimum storage capacity in rains and floods. NESPAK engineers had failed in proper planning and designing projects for Balochistan. In most of the cases, NESPAK had dispatched inexperienced and low grade functionaries for preparing the design. In some case, sub-engineers were asked to supervise the project, including the Ankara Kaur Dam. It was natural that the design of the dam will be defective, below specification work had been carried out and sub-standard material used in connecting dam reservoir with the city. Pipes used were defective and NAB caught the NESPAK engineers and they were convicted in court of law for committing crime against the state and the people. Now the only solution for the water problem is that the Government should carry out desilting of the dam reservoir before the rains in the region so that water is again stored for future use. Besides desilting, the Government should raise the level of Dam Reservoir on the patter of Mangla Dam so that storage capacity is increased and the demand of the local people should be met for two years. Secondly, the Government should construct another dam in the downstream of Dasht River near Sunt Sar before the seasonal river falls into the Baloch Gulf. It will be the second dam on Dasht River storing water released from the spill way of the Mirani Dam. It can be a huge dam meeting the needs of growers of the area and develop a green belt around the port city of Gwadar. Thirdly, the Government should build a dam on Sawar River for which the Chief Minister had already allocated funds for early planning and execution of the project. Dams on Shadi Kaur and other rivers flowing close to Ormara be built catering the water needs of the entire coastal belt, including commercial needs of the huge projects planned for the Mekran Coast. The Government should allocate funds from its provincial sources as the Federal Government is reluctant to make significant investment for development of Balochistan for strategic reasons. The Provincial Government should seek international assistance from development finance institutions and friendly countries to augment water resources for the entire coastal region, from Karachi to Jiwani. Friendly country like Iran, UAE and other states in the gulf region will definitely help Balochistan in augmenting water resources, meeting the basic human needs and also for commercial and agriculture uses in the whole Mekran and Lasbela region. Vindar Dam had been planned and its foundation stone had been laid by the President of Pakistan last year and hopefully the work on the Vindar Dam will gain reasonable pace so that it is complete within the stipulated period. There are big scope for building more dams in Lasbela and Mekran Division meeting the water needs of the people. However, the Government will have to speed up the work to provide water to the residents of Gwadar before the start migrating from the port city for want of water.