ISLAMABAD: A meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Water Resources underlined the need of speedy installation of telemetering system by the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) to ensure for exchange of data between provinces, for gauging and recording of surface water flows, as grievances over water distribution could jeopardise inter-provincial harmony.
The meeting presided over by Senator Shamim Afridi on Thursday was grossly disappointed when it was told that an additional secretary was representing the Ministry of Water Resource, and neither minister nor the secretary considered it important to attend the meeting, when issue of such importance was on the agenda.
Some committee members suggested that the committee having the power of civil court must issue summon warrants to them.
The meeting was told that that entire Pakistan was being supplied water from Tarbela and Mangla dams and PC-I of telemetering system would be ready in two weeks time, and the system would become operational in two to three years.
Senator Gianchand, mover of the motion in the Senate with regard to importance of telemeter system, which was subsequently referred to the committee and was taken up, said that his concern was over distribution of water and if Indus River System Authority (Irsa) did not know as to how much water was in the system, how it would distribute. Gianchand further said that this issue could harm the inter-provincial harmony and the IRSA should give a timeline for telemetering system installation.
Chairman Indus River System Authority (Irsa) Zahid Abbas while briefing the committee stated that a notification was issued in 2004 to install the telemetering system but remained unsuccessful.
He said the total water for distribution among the provinces was about 118 million acre feet but actual average availability was around 104MAF, and after accounting for estimated shortage, the remaining water availability was distributed among the provinces.
The Chairman Irsa added that the World Bank approved loan and two companies participated in the bidding.
However, because of some technical issues, the Irsa decided to go for rebidding, which was objected to by the World Bank and the loan was cancelled.
Responding to a question, he replied that telemetering system cost had been estimated at Rs670 million, and available funds with Irsa were Rs860 million, so the funding would not be an issue.
The standing committee also constituted a sub-committee on a motion moved by Senator Samina Saeed in the Senate, and subsequently referred to the committee about compensation to the victims of Terbela Dam by successive governments since 1971.
Saeed told the committee that more than 84,000 acre of land was acquired by the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) from district Haripur, Manshera, Swabi, Tribal Areas of KP, and District Attock of Punjab, during the former military ruler General Ayub Khan's government for construction of Tarbela Dam.
The project was started in 1971-1972 and completed in 1985-1986 but since then only 30 percent victims of the dam were compensated, while remaining had not been compensated, Senator Saeed added.
Member WAPDA, however, did not agree and argued that as per their record all the victims had been compensated and even if any one was left, the authority was ready to compensate him.
The chairman of the committee, after hearing both the sides, decided to constitute a three-member sub-committee headed by Senator Sabir Shah with Walid iqbal and Shahzaib Durrani.
The committee also directed member WAPDA to present record of compensated and mover to submit list of those who were not compensated.
The sub-committee gave two-month timeline to the sub-committee to prepare report based on documentary evidence from both the sides, and submit to the committee.
The Pakhtunkhwa Energy Development Organization (PEDO) also briefed the committee about the process for hiring of planning consultants with scope to conduct study of all water storage dams in southern parts of the province to assess hydropower potential.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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