Prime Minister Imran Khan has performed the ground-breaking of the Tarbela-5 (T5) expansion project. The project is aimed at protecting the Tarbela Dam against silting besides helping generate 1530 MW electricity and provide 1.34 billion units of power to the national grid.
The construction of Tarbela-5 expansion project would also help in generating approximately 3,000 jobs and would also enhance power production capacity of Tarbela Hydropower Project from 4,888 MW to 6,418 MW. Besides providing clean energy, the Tarbela-5 would also protect the dam against silting.
With the financial assistance of World Bank and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the project would be completed costing $807 million within a short time span of three years.
While speaking at the occasion PM said that we need to take major steps to ensure conservation of water now to save ourselves from water scarcity in the future. “We have decided to construct 10 dams within 10 years including Dasu and Bhasha dams. We may face water shortage in the future and would be unable to cope with the needs of people and farmers unless we have storages,” the prime minister said.
Pakistan’s rivers get 80% of water inflow within three to four months and the construction of reservoirs was extremely essential to store water to ensure essential throughout the year.
At the occasion the prime minister particularly appreciated the performance of Chairman of Water and Power Development Authority Lt General (Retd) Muzzammil Hussain for keeping up the construction work of dams despite COVID-related restrictions.
