KARACHI, Dec 12: President Pervez Musharraf on Monday once again sounded a note of caution to the people of Sindh on the growing water shortage which is expected to reach 20 to 25 million acres per feet by the year 2020.

“If dams are not constructed, it will be suicidal for Sindh and for Pakistan even,” he said and declared that since he belonged to Sindh he would not allow harm to come to either Sindh or Pakistan.

The president was addressing a gathering of elected representatives including MPAs belonging to the PML, PML-F, Patriots and MQM at the Governor’s House.

The president stressed the need for a forthright and futuristic look at the realities of the water shortfall and urged people not to be fooled by the “misperceptions that were created in the past”.

Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad, Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, PML Secretary General Mushahid Hussain Sayed and Corps Commander

Lt-Gen Syed Athar were also present.

Also attending the meeting were provincial ministers, Sindh Assembly Speaker Syed Muzaffar Hussain, Deputy Speaker Rahila Tiwana, some federal ministers, senators and MNAs.

The president spoke about the disadvantages of not having large dams and highlighted the immense benefits the people of Sindh stood to gain from building such dams in time.

“If at least two to three dams are not constructed by the year 2020, Sindh will face a water shortage and its farmers will cry for water and there will be no water,” the president said.

Currently there is a water shortfall of 9 MAF but by the year 2025 the projected shortage could increase to around 30 MAF due to silting and rising consumption of water, he said.

The government has already adopted remedial measures which will reduce the shortage to 15-20 MAF by the year 2020.

Over the last five years, President Musharraf said his policies and plans had been in the best interest of the nation. In the same spirit and vision, he said he had alerted people to the dangers that Sindh and its agricultural economy were likely to face due to paucity of water.

He made it clear that since he had an association with Sindh its interests were close to his heart. The president recalled that in 1998 when he found there was “low representation of Sindh and Balochistan in the military” he decided to increase the percentage of Sindhi representation in the armed forces.

The army, he said, is a national institution and today there are 80,000 Sindhis serving it. The president said that 9 to 10 per cent army officers hail from Sindh.

He said he kept himself abreast with the performance of boys enlisting from Sindh and Balochistan.

President Musharraf dismissed as “absolutely false” apprehensions aired by some quarters about water-related issues and said that the government was totally sincere about addressing these issues.

By the year 2010, he said, the water shortfall could be as much as 6 MAF and the Tarbela and Mangla dams have depleted by 4 MAF which is equal to one dam.

Continuing, he said, by the year 2015-20, the country would need two to three dams as no new dam had been constructed in the last 30 years.

The president said that if Pakistan went ahead and built three dams it would be able to generate 15,000 MW of power and change its destiny as well.

He said the feasibility of Kalabagh dam was ready and pointed out that no other initiative had been taken besides that.

He said the present situation is that studies for both Bhasha and Kalabagh dams are ready and that of Akori dam is under process and would be completed by the year 2007-08.

He said technical designing of Kalabagh dam is already complete and that of Bhasha is yet to be started, after which only construction work will start which will take 6-8 years to complete.—app