Pakistan hopes Chinese funds will help meet power shortage

islamabad — Pakistan expects China to fund a long-delayed Indus river mega dam project in GilgitBaltistan 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, but has struggled to raise money from international institutions amid opposition from its neighbour India.

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 DiamerBhasha dam should generate 4,500 megawatts of electricity, and a vast new reservoir would regulate the flow of water to farmland that is vulnerable to increasingly erratic weather patterns.

Ahsan 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 on Monday at his ministerial home in Islamabad.

China and Pakistan signed a memorandum of understanding in December for Beijing to help

The water reservoir (at diamer-Bhasha dam) is most critical for food security in Pakistan, so is a very high priority project for Pakistan Ahsan Iqbal, Planning Minister

fund and develop Pakistan’s Indus Basin dams, though no timelines have been released. Pakistan estimates there is 40,000mw 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, the Water and Power Development Authority estimates.

Iqbal said Pakistani and Chinese engineers are also surveying other projects, including the 7,100mw Bunji hydro power project that will be the first in the cascade that stretches down to the Tarbela Dam near Islamabad.

India this year fast-tracked $15 billion worth of dam projects on its side of Kashmir, despite fears from Islamabad that the power stations will disrupt vital Indus water flows into Pakistan.

Iqbal said India needs to “stop its myopic thinking towards CPEC” and accept the Chinese-funded project is going ahead. Better still would be for India to become part of Beijing’s Belt and Road plans, he said.

Future CPEC plans are increasingly focused on how Beijing can help build up Pakistan’s ailing industries, creating special economic zones and opening up sectors from mining to agriculture to Chinese firms.

But Iqbal said infrastructure construction won’t stop, with contracts set to be signed for roads and for mass rail transport systems in Quetta, Peshawar and Karachi. — Reuters