Former Chairman Wapda Shamsulmulk on Tuesday warned of severe water crisis in the coming days if immediate construction of mega reservoirs like Kalabagh (KBD) and Bhasha is further delayed. Speaking in a debate at a private TV channel he said the water crisis would have adverse affect on country's capacity in food security and power generation at a cost which would make industrial and agricultural products compatible in the international markets.
He said the shortage of water was getting acute with every passing day and if timely measures were not taken it would develop to an uncontrollable stage.
The former Wapda Chairman said if they had chosen right way 20 years ago, they could have been paying a fraction of the electricity bill, which were paying now.
To a question he said there was no doubt Kalabagh dam was best option at the time but there was also dire need to start construction of other dams like Bhasha along with that dam.
Elaborating he said the Kalabagh dam if constructed in near future would nearly replace the storage loss occurred due to silting in big reservoirs after their construction.
So, practically the KBD on its completion would take the country back to a position when Tarbela dam was built.
To another question he said construction of small dams at present would not help to overcome the water shortage crisis.
Explaining, he said there were 58 small dams so far in the country with average storage capacity of 8000-acre feet. So, there was a need to build 750 small dams in lieu of KBD, which was not feasible practically.