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Diamer-Bhasha Dam: ADB asks govt to focus on people, not just water, power

Poreg view: This is bad news for Pakistan from the lead financer of the Diamer-Bhasha Dam that Islamabad sees as its bail out from energy deficit. Estimated to cost $11.2 billion over a 12-year period the project will generate 4,500 megawatts, besides storing 8.5 million-acre-feet of water for irrigation. ADB is not impressed by the resettlement of displaced families.  And if it is not pleased, it may also turn away from the dam. Already the World Bank has refused to finance the venture.  The dam will replace approximately 22,000 people in 30 villages of the environmentally fragile Diamer valley of Gilgit-Baltistan, also known as Northern Areas.

“Pakistan has not been focusing on social aspects of the project as much as one could hope,” said Rune Stroem, the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Head of Energy Division on Tuesday, Dec 13. “The resettlement work has been done but there are still gaps where the government needs to bring in improvement as per international standards,” Stroem said while speaking to journalists along with the bank’s country director to Pakistan, Werner Liepach, after conclusion of a visit aimed at ‘critically reviewing the mega project’. Liepach did his own plain speaking signaling that unless World Bank gave a clean health certificate to the Pakistan economy, ADB would not enter into negotiations for new loan programmes.

Compensation demands by affected villagers are threatening to stall the project work. Federal government agency, Water and Power Development Authority, (Wapda), acquired 1,300 acres of land in 2006 for the construction of Diamer-Bhasha Dam and Wapda Colony within the revenue limits of Kohistan District.  Even after five years the amount has not been paid. The compensation claims amount to Pakistan Rupees 262 million.

Land owners in Kohistan district are upset that Wapda has disbursed compensation to the affected families in Diamer, but Kohistanis are still running between the offices of the concerned authorities, only to be faced with delay tactics. Now they are threatening to block the Karakorum Highway if they are not paid compensation without any delay.  “11,000 affected villagers from Dasu Tehsil and the areas surrounding Kohistan would block the Karakorum Highway for an indefinite period. The responsibility for any disorderly situation arising would be on the government and Wapda authorities”, leaders of the Dam affected families thundered at a news conference, a local daily reported.

According to Stroem, Diamer-Bhasha project’s success hangs on local people’s satisfaction with resettlement activities, and environment neutral construction efforts. The legal wrangle between Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber-Pakthunkhwa over sharing of Dam revenues is another sore point.  The wrangle is over the ownership of an 18-kilometre-long belt and both sides have hardened their stands and have knocked at Islamabad doors in order to secure their share in income from power generation. Gilgit-Baltistan is even threatening to drag its neighbour to the Supreme Court ‘if the issue is not amicably resolved’. K-P also has made similar noises.
G-B cites an agreement signed in 1947 between the representatives of the Kohistan district of K-P and the Diamer district, which declares the disputed land part of Diamer. G-B Supreme Appellate Court in 2010 decreed 75 per cent royalty of the dam for G-B. The court ruled that the remaining 25 percent royalty should be settled through a boundary commission.  The K-P government, on the other hand, draws support from the 1955 Boundary Commission’s report that suggests that eight kilometres of land near the dam is part of K-P.

In other words, if K-Ps claim is accepted, it will have rights to 50 per cent of the royalty of the dam being built on River Indus, about 300 km upstream of Tarbela Dam and about 40 km downstream of Chilas Town, the headquarters of Diamer.

“The ADB is fully aware that there will be strong debate on revenue sharing and we can give advice but at the end the issue will have to be decided by the Council of Common Interest,” Stroem said. He added there was a need to ensure minimum water flows, during the storage period, to offset negative impact on the environment. No water flows at the time of construction and storage will have adverse effects, he cautioned.

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