Islamabad: Government to build Rs 2.14bn small dam on Ghabir Nullah

[Naveed Yaseen]

* Centre to fund the project executed by WAPDA and Punjab govt
* Dam will provide 58.6 cusecs water to irrigate 15,000 acres of agriculture land by gravity and 500 acres by lift irrigation

By Aamir Yasin

ISLAMABAD: The federal government will construct Rs 2.14 billion small dam on Ghabir Nullah, a tributary of Soan River, District Chakwal.

Sources told Daily Times on Tuesday Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) and the Punjab government would execute the project and the federal government would fund the project under Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP).

They said main objective of the project was to provide 58.6 cusecs water to irrigate 15,000 acres of agriculture land by gravity and 500 acres by lift irrigation. They said it would also recharge groundwater aquifer and reduce flood losses.

They said Ghabir Dam would be constructed across the Ghabir Nullah, a tributary of Soan River. The dam’s catchment area comprises 417 sq km, while the mean annual surface flow in the project area is about 44.83 Million Cubic Meter (MCM), which is sufficient to irrigate 15,000 acres Cultivable Command Area (CCA).

They said the earth core fill dam would have a length of 950 meters embankment and 42 meters (137.8 ft) height with gross storage capacity of 81.66 MCM (66,203 acre feet) and live storage capacity of 32.07 MCM (26,000 acre feet).

They said the dam would be provided with “Over Flow Ogee Type Spillway” of 42,378 cusecs discharge capacity. The irrigation network includes construction of 58.6 cusecs design discharge channel of 14 km length and minors of 1.2 km length, they said.

“The work on the project would start soon, which will be completed by 2012,” said the sources. They said the dam project would tackle the issues of water scarcity, additional reservoirs and protect the infrastructure from onslaught of floods and create employment opportunities in the area.

They said construction of a small dam for irrigation was a dire need of this area, as the drought cycle was frequent and the only solution was dams to conserve the rain runoff for agriculture.

They said the dam would be constructed in Chakwal district, northern Punjab and Potohar plateau, which is broken and uneven and the average runoff is about 1.88 MAF where as only 0.22 MAF (12 percent) is tapped by construction of small dams.

They said the annual rainfall was about 518 mm and about two third of the total annual rain precipitated during monsoon season.

They said delay in monsoon and erratic winter made availability of water uncertain and the topography of the hilly areas with steep ground slopes helped the rainwater to run in the streams at high velocity, so the rainwater did not percolate.

The sources said the government would spend Rs 715.943 million on main dam, Rs 107.027 million on spillway; Rs 12.333 million on outlet structure, Rs 962.813 million on irrigation channel and associated structure, Rs 24.4 million on approach road, Rs 7.595 million for buildings, Rs 128.393 million for the land acquisition and resettlement, Rs 0.500 million for ground breaking ceremony, Rs 3.302 million for electrification and Rs 42.768 million for the command area development.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...009_pg11_1