COMPARISON BETWEEN

BHASHA AND KALABAGH

DAMS
By

Engr. Amjad Hussain Malik

Chairman
Institution of Engineers, Pakistan
(IEP)
 COMPARISON BETWEEN BHASHA
AND KALABAGH DAMS
KBD is ready to build and will take five to
six years to come on stream compared to
twelve years minimum for BD, possibly 15
years.

KBD will utilize waters of Kabul, Chitral,

Swat, Haro & Sohan rivers; BD will not.

KBD will utilize a big part of the 30 maf

annual monsoon flow; BD is beyond the
monsoon range.
 COMPARISON BETWEEN BHASHA
AND KALABAGH DAMS (Contd)
On the one hand the argument has been
that there is not enough water to build big
dams, and now by opting for Bhasha dam,
the monsoon flow and the water from five
big rivers is being bypassed.

Dams are built for inter transfer of storages

between wet and dry seasons and or years.
KBD will store monsoon flow for use in late
Kharif and Rabi seasons; BD will not. This
will seriously affect Rabi sowing in Punjab
and Sindh.
 COMPARISON BETWEEN BHASHA
AND KALABAGH DAMS (Contd)
KBD will prevent heavy floods by
moderating floods of the five rivers in South
Punjab and Sindh, particularly in the Kacha
area between Guddu and Kotri barrages; BD
will not.

KBD will augment power generation at

Tarbela by allowing higher reservoir levels
there, BD will not. (three power turbines
can be added at Tarbela which is presently
underway to improve the Power situation by
1400 MW)
 COMPARISON BETWEEN BHASHA
AND KALABAGH DAMS (Contd)
BD, 310 miles of approach road has to be
widened and strengthened to take heavy
machinery to the site before work can start.

BD, 140 miles of Karakorum highway will

have to be relocated at a higher and more
difficult terrain.(these two roads will cost
more than the dam itself)
 COMPARISON BETWEEN BHASHA
AND KALABAGH DAMS (Contd)
KBD will also be subject to seismic
disturbances but not as much as BD which is
in a highly active seismic zone.

BD, will require many years of seismic

investigations before work can start.
 COMPARISON BETWEEN BHASHA
AND KALABAGH DAMS (Contd)
BD, the power transmission lines will
traverse 200 miles of this very difficult
terrain, through an active seismic zone to
get to the national grid at Tarbela. (making
power from Bhasha dam more expensive
than KBD, a very negative factor).

The transmission line route will be prone to

landslides. Any disturbance on the power
lines in a most inaccessible region will cause
disruption on the national grid for long
periods.
 COMPARISON BETWEEN BHASHA
AND KALABAGH DAMS (Contd)

At present agriculture has top priority for

water from Mangla and Tarbela dams,
creating a bottleneck for power generation.
By building KBD for storage only, the dams
at Tarbela and Bhasha can be used primarily
for power generation, to eliminate the
conflicting demands of power and water.
 COMPARISON BETWEEN BHASHA
AND KALABAGH DAMS (Contd)
BD parameters were altered in an effort to
afford better usage. To give it a completion
period close to that of KBD, the rock-fill
design has been changed to rollercompacted
concrete. This design shall usher in a new
state of the art technical challenge for
engineers.
Height 680 to 908 feet (KBD 260 feet)
Storage 8.1 maf (KBD 6.1 maf)
Implementation 12 years (KBD 6 yrs )
Cost USD 12 Billion (KBD USD 7
Billion)
 COMPARISON BETWEEN BHASHA
AND KALABAGH DAMS (Contd)
Whereas the height has been increased
considerably to increase storage capacity,
safety of BD shall have to be re-checked.

Finally, Dams and Politics should not be

mixed at grave national risk.
Thanks