ISLAMABAD, April 22: The controversy over Kalabagh dam project suddenly became hot in the National Assembly on Tuesday on provincial lines and even seemed straining the ruling coalition during a debate on the country’s prevailing water and power crisis.
Across the party lines, some members of the lower house from Sindh province reacted angrily to suggestions from their Punjabi colleagues in support of the presently shelved plan to build the big dam at Kalabagh in their province on the river Indus.Most opposition against the project, which had been the favourite of President Pervez Musharraf in recent years, came from government leader Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and support from its main coalition ally Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), whose members joined forces with their one-time rival and former Punjab chief minister Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo.
The acrimony in the debate, due to be wound up on Wednesday, contrasted with a near unanimity seen in the house over forming a special committee to investigate alleged wrongdoing in the allotment of some prime railways land in Lahore to a golf club under the previous government and in passing a resolution urging the government to take steps to ban the use of plastic shopping bags and encourage biodegradable alternatives.
“You can name Kalabagh dam white dam, green dam, Frontier dam or Sindh dam … but it must be considered,” Mr Wattoo said amid chants of “no, no” from several PPP members as well as some opposition members from Sindh as he pleaded for building big dams besides small ones to overcome the country’s power and irrigation water shortages.
“We will not let Kalabagh dam be built,” PPP’s Shagufta Jamani said angrily after PML-N member Chaudhry Ejaz Virk picked up Mr Wattoo’s theme by saying the proposed dam could be called “Quaid-i-Azam Dam” as a way of appeasing its opponents, who actually argue against the project over fears it would submerge large swathes of fertile Peshawar valley in the North West Frontier Province and deprive Sindh and Balochistan provinces of their due shares of the Indus waters.
Ms Jamani and some of her other colleagues argued the project should not be taken up after resolutions passed by the provincial assemblies of Sindh, NWFP and Balochistan against it and called for implementing alternative plans.
Syed Asif Hussain of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) went to the extent of describing advocacy of Kalabagh dam as unpatriotic, provoking a protest from a PML-N member, while senior PPP members Syed Zafar Ali Shah and Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani said Sindh’s objection to the project stemmed from its rights as lower riparian and views of experts.
PML-N’s Mohammad Bashir Virk said Kalabagh dam was the most suitable project supported by necessary studies that could add 3,600 megawatts of electricity but its opponents spoke of “non-existent” alternatives.
RAILWAY LAND: Earlier, the house first passed a resolution moved by four ruling coalition members calling for a government investigation of “matters of allotment” of railways land in Lahore to a golf club on nominal prices during the period 2001-2007 and for “taking legal action against the responsible persons”.
But on suggestions from Railways Minister Sardar Mehtab Ahmad Khan, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Faooq Naek and several other members from both the treasury and opposition benches, the house passed another resolution to form a special committee for what some of them said a committee of the previous house was not allowed to do.
Deputy Speaker Faisal Karim Kundi, who was chairing the house at the time, was authorised to name the committee’s members after consulting all parties in the house.
The railways minister agreed with the movers of the resolution that a prime value land had been allotted for a “none-core” job to a golf club on nominal prices, while his predecessor, Ghaus Bakhsh Maher, also wanted a special committee probe into the matter that one member traced to 2001 when he said retired Lt.-Gen Javed Ashraf Qazi was President Musharraf’s railways minister.
One member of the previously ruling Pakistan Muslim League, Sheikh Waqas Akram, called the move courageous after efforts for a probe by a committee of the previous house was frustrated by a group of powerful people and then-minister of state for railways Ishaq Khakwani had even lost his job over the issue.
“This group has very long hands … and it extends from the military to bureaucracy,” he said about people involved and added that the golf club was not their only project.
Dear visitor, the comments section is undergoing an overhaul and will return soon.