Pakistan eyes 2018 start for China-funded mega dam

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan expects China to fund a long-delayed Indus river mega dam project in Gilgit-Baltistan with work beginning next year, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal said in an interview.

Pakistan has been keen for years to build a cascade of mega dams along the Indus flowing down from the Himalayas.

Those ambitions have been revived by China’s Belt and Road infrastructure plans for Pakistan, a key cog in Beijing’s creation of a modern-day Silk Road network of trade routes connecting Asia with Europe and Africa. The $12$14 billion Diamer-Bhasha dam should generate 4,500 megawatts (MW) of electricity, and a vast new reservoir would regulate the flow of water to farmland that is vulnerable to increasingly erratic weather patterns.

Iqbal, the Islamabad lead on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), said a Chinese company from a Beijing-picked shortlist and a local partner would build the dam over a 10-year period, and work should begin in the “next financial year”, which begins in July.

“This water reservoir is most critical for food security in Pakistan, so is a very high priority project for Pakistan,” Iqbal said.

China and Pakistan signed a memorandum of understanding in December for Beijing to help fund and develop Pakistan’s In- dus Basin dams, though no timelines have been released.

Pakistan estimates there 40,000 MW of hydro potential.

The Diamer-Bhasha dam and reservoir would displace more than 4,200 families in nearby areas and submerge a large section of the Karakoram Highway to China, Pakistan’s Water and Power Development Authority estimates. Iqbal said Pakistani and Chinese engineers are also surveying other projects, including the 7,100 MW Bunji hydro power project that will be the first in the cascade that stretches down to the Tarbela Dam. is