PESHAWAR, March 2: President General Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday strongly advocated the construction of the Kalabagh dam, but said that any decision in this regard would have to be taken by the people.

The president, who addressed his first public meeting in the NWFP after the May 2002 referendum, spoke at length on the merits of building Kalabagh dam as opposed to the Bhasha dam.

It was significant that the president chose to speak on the controversial issue in Nowshera which, according to the dam's opponents, will suffer most in terms of dislocation of people and loss of fertile land in case the Kalabagh dam is built.

The president's advocacy for the dam apparently took even Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao by surprise whose party has been opposing the project. "I have come here for a jirga. I will speak candidly and openly and then we shall offer dua," he said, alluding to the Pukhtuns practice of praying after resolving a ticklish matter.

However, Gen Musharraf, who appeared to have come determined to seek public approval for the controversial project, stopped short of making any announcement at the meeting organised by the Pakistan People's Party-Sherpao.

A former minister, Mian Muzaffar Shah, who conducted proceedings as the stage secretary, said 'no' in a loud voice and gestured to people to wave hands in disapproval just as the president warmed up to the theme.

In fact, so forceful was the president's speech that some federal ministers present at the public meeting insisted that he had actually made the announcement. However, the president later clarified to reporters at the Army Garrison Club that he had made no such announcement.

"I have not made any announcement regarding Kalabagh dam. I have only presented the merits and demerits of the two projects. Any decision will have to be made by the people," he said.

He said at the meeting that it was not only the question of storing water but also an issue of generating more and cheaper electricity. Comparing the two projects, the president said that Kalabagh dam would have a water storage capacity of 90 Million Acre Feet (MAF) against Bhasha dam's capacity of about 50 MAF.

He said that while the feasibility of the Kalabagh dam was ready, it would take three to five years to prepare the feasibility report of Bhasha dam. The construction of Bhasha dam, he added, would require the government to reconstruct a major part of the Karakoram Highway that would take more time to build than the ready-for-construction Kalabagh dam.

Dressed in brown khaddar shalwar-kameez with a matching shawl, the president sought to allay people's apprehensions that the dam would flood their areas and said that on the contrary, it would irrigate 300,000 acres in southern districts of the NWFP through a link canal that would increase crop yield and reduce poverty. "Trust me, I will never let you down," he held out the assurance.