LAHORE, June 4: The Sup-reme Court of Pakistan has been moved to grant stay against plans to shelve the Kalabagh dam project.

Petitioner Watan Party through Barrister Zafarullah filed an application on Wednesday in its already pending petition before the Supreme Court for issuing directives to the federal government to materialise the project. On May 20, 2006, the Supreme Court had issued notices to the federal government as well as advocate generals of all provinces.

Moving the court for stay against abandoning the plan, the counsel said the recent decision of the government would seriously damage the country’s potential to store water.

He said almost half of the 24 million acre feet (MAF) water, which flowed into the sea every year, could be saved if the country constructed two mega dams — Kalabagh Dam and Basha Dam. He added the 1.7 MAF water shortage the province of Sindh was facing could be removed only if Kalabagh Dam was constructed. He said this would bring some 4.8 millions acres of land under cultivation.

He said Pakistan had not built any mega dam since 1974 although it required five such dams on war-footings. Barrister Zafarullah said the construction of the dam would also add to electricity production, which had hit an all time low.

He said the capacity of Mangla and Tarbela had gone down by 21 per cent and 33 per cent respectively, besides inflows to these two facilities dropped to 22,100 cusec. “There will be continuous water reduction at Mangla, Terbela and Chashma. Due to numerous reasons, the water availability would decrease by 5.1 MAF,” he said.

He added Pakistan could store up to 5.1 MAF water by building the dam and produce 4,500 megawatt (MW) of electricity at a very cheap cost.

He said ex-Wapda chairman Shamsul Mulk had said the dam could help irrigate 800,000 acres of land in the NWFP. The lawyer said the ex-Wapda chairman, who resides in Nowshera, had also dispelled the impression that the seepages from the dam would endanger the very existence of this town.

The counsel said India had so far constructed 23 dams on River Jhelum, which were not only catering to irrigation but were producing 12,197 MW electricity. He added on River Chenab, India intends to build another 19 dams with the capacity of generating over 10,000 MW power.

“Baglihar Dam is good enough to stop water flowing into Pakistan by 8,000 cusec a day. If India stops water from Jhelum and Chenab, it would create havoc with districts like Multan, Jhang, Faisalabad, Gujrat, Okara, Sahiwal, Vehari, Bahawalnagr, Bahawalpur and Rahim Yar Khan,” he said.

He added India planned to build Kargil Dam in occupied Kashmir, and according to the Indus Water Treaty, Pakistan would not be able to build a dam under it. “The treaty says if one party builds a dam first, the second shall not build another one,” the lawyer added.