RAWALPINDI:Dadocha Dam would help overcome the water shortage in Rawalpindi, said Commissioner Rawalpindi Division, Liaquat Ali Chatta.
According to a Commissioner Office spokesman, the Commissioner had instructed the revenue department to estimate the land acquisition cost according to the fresh rates in light of the orders of the Supreme Court.
The Commissioner also directed the Irrigation Department to prepare a fresh estimate of the civil work of Dadocha Dam, adding that any further delay in this project would be extremely unfair to the people of Rawalpindi.
He ordered the Director of Development to set time-lines for all the relevant departments, and the target to start work on this project within the next 36 days should be fixed.
He directed the authorities to have a site visit next week, and local residents should be especially invited, and their complaints should also be heard. He said the local residents would be adequately compensated for their lands. Water scarcity has become a global problem, and different countries are considering different ways to meet the shortage, he added.
Pakistan is also one of the countries suffering from a water crisis, the commissioner said. Due to the non-construction of dams, the per capita availability of water here has decreased four times during the last 50 years, Liaquat Ali Chatta said.
Due to the absence of the dams, millions of cubic meters of rainwater are wasted every year, causing floods, he said. The government of Punjab is giving priority to the problem of water scarcity and is paying special attention to the construction of small dams, he said, and informed that the approved cost of the dam being built in Dadocha village near Rawat Industrial Estate was Rs 6492 million, which would now be estimated again. After construction of the dam, it would supply 35 million gallons per day of water to Rawalpindi, he added.