Indian plans of dams in Kashmir ring alarm bells

ISLAMABAD The business community on Friday showed concerns over Indian plan to construct 93 dams on Kashmiri rivers and other places, as this would destroy Pakistans agriculture and economy, and the expressed the need for the Government to take up the issue with India.
Vice Presidents of Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) Karim Aziz Malik and Ahsan Zafar Bakhtawari in a statement said that India reportedly has chalked out an action plan to build 93 dams at an estimated cost of Rs.230 billion. They said that execution of this plan will make our agricultural lands barren as it will almost completely dry up our rivers. They said India has already created acute water shortage for Pakistan by starting construction of 450-megawatt Baglihar hydropower power project on the Chenab River as the 470-feet high and 317-meter wide dam with a storage capacity of 15 billion cusecs of water.
has significantly reduced water flow to our agricultural lands.
They feared that another Indian dam Kishanganga on Neelum River would further reduce the water flow to Pakistan.
Karim Aziz Malik said that according to some estimates, only Baglihar Dam will cause a loss of 321,000 million acre feet (MAF) of water to Pakistan bringing some 405 canals and 1125 distributaries to dead levels and affecting 13 million acres of agricultural land on which rice, wheat, sugarcane and fodder crops are grown.
He stressed upon the Government to immediately plan construction of small dams and water reservoirs for storage of water and energy generation. He lamented that despite possessing the worlds best canal system, Pakistan is losing about 60 MAF of water to the oceans due to lack of reservoirs.
Ahsan Bakhtawari said serious energy shortage, massive load shedding and lowest ever-strategic oil reserves are emerging as major threats to the business community and the economy at large.
He said Pakistan is predicted to face power shortage of about 5,500MW in the coming months and stressed upon the Government to take measures on war footing basis to meet energy needs of country and to save the industries and economy from further devastation.