Kalabagh Dam - Political Hurdles

Political Hurdles

Sindh is the lower riparian and strongest opponent of KBD and politicians presents many objections against the proposed dam:

• That their share of the Indus water will be curtailed as water from the Kalabagh will go to irrigate farmlands in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, at their cost. Sindhis hold that their rights as the lower riparian have precedence according to international water distribution law.

• The coastal regions of Sindh require a constant flow of water down the Indus into the Arabian Sea so that the flowing water can keep the seawater from intruding inland. Such seawater intrusion would literally turn vast areas of Sindh's coast into an arid saline desert, and destroy Sindh's coastal mangroves.

• With the construction of dams, such as Mangla Dam and Tarbela Dam across the Indus, Sindhis have seen the once-mighty Indus turned into a shadow of its former glory downstream of the Kotri Barrage up to Hyderabad. They fear that there simply is not enough water for another large dam across the Indus, let alone three.

• Claims that the current flow of Indus river downstream of Kotri Barrage is only because of rain. Hence in years of low rain, Sindh fears the Indus would stop flowing.

• Damming the Indus has already caused a number of environmental problems that have not yet addressed. Silt deposited in the proposed Kalabagh dam would further curtail the water storage capacity of Manchar Lake and other lakes and of wetlands like Haleji Lake.

• President Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and other leaders, have promised "iron-clad constitutional guarantees" to ensure that Sindh gets its fair share of water. However, these assurances mean little to most Sindhis, who claim that even the earlier 1991 Indus Water-Sharing Accord, which is a document already guaranteed by the constitutional body, the Council of Common Interests, has been violated, and that Punjab has "stolen" their water without any concrete evidence.

The objection to Kalabagh in Sindh is widespread. Even political parties of Sindh that are in the central cabinet and are supported by General Musharraf, such as the Muttahida Quami Movement, have strongly denounced the dam. Opposition towards Kalabagh Dam is such that PML N's Sindh Chapter also were in unison with the opponents of the Dam and as a result even PML N's leader Mr Nawaz Sharif, who as the Prime Minister of Pakistan had stated in 1998 that he proposes to build the dam, retracted from his stance and declared that Sindh's view point ought to be respected and no project, however essential, be carried out that weakened Pakistan's Federation.