By Ali Imran
ISLAMABAD: Ministry of Water Resources has completed around 3,846 small scales Rain Water Harvesting (RWH) schemes, ponds and tanks in the country so far and adopting measures to promote appropriate technologies for water storage in rural as well as urban areas. Of the total, 3606 schemes have so far been completed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP),180 schemes in Punjab and 60 such schemes in Sindh. The official statistics highlighting completed and planned schemes in provinces on Tuesday revealed the number of schemes in Punjab was 3980, of which 180 were completed and work in progress on 320 schemes. Moreover, 3480 schemes in Punjab are under the process of approval.
Similarly, the number of schemes in KP was 12,790, of which 9,135 were proposed, 3606 completed and work in progress on 42 schemes.
=Similarly, the number of schemes in Sindh was 108, of which 25 were proposed, 60 completed and 23 areongoing. The AJK authorities have also submitted 600 RWH schemes to the Federal government for approval. It has been further revealed that to take stock of the emerging water crisis, the government was promoting appropriate technologies for rainwater harvesting in rural as well as urban areas which was one of the important objectives of the NWP. Consistent with NWP, the concept of Rainwater Harvesting is being used in the country for water conservation for crops and livestock as well as groundwater recharge and the countrywide data regarding progress on implementation of various Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) projects in Islamabad Capital Territory Administration (ICT) showed that 69 check dams/RWH ponds etc. have been completed.
Currently, 39 RWH schemes are currently in progress in ICT while 57 RWH schemes have been planned for ICT up to the year 2024.
In Sindh province through federal government funding, around 28 small storage/mini dams have been completed, the number of ongoing mini dam projects is 07 while the total storage of the completed mini dams is 166,743 acre-feet (i.e. 0.167 MAF) to irrigate 85,191 acres.
Similarly, the Sindh government under its Annual Development Plan (ADP) built 36 small storage dams/delay action dams, retention weirs and Impervious Sub-Surface Outflow (ISSO) barriers while working in progress on 12 ongoing mini dam projects. The total storage of the completed mini dams in Sindh is 230,951 acre-feet (0.231 MAF) to irrigate 91,409 acres.
The water storage schemes have also been completed in Balochistan which included the completion of the Abato dam and Sanza dam in the Chaman area while work on Diasara dam is in process.
The statistics showed that in District Killa Abdullah, 65 out of 200 ongoing dams have been completed while work is in progress on the remaining sites.
In District Killa Saifullah, work on 71 dams out of 100 ongoing dams, construction of 200 Small Check Dams for Ground Water Recharge in Quetta and construction of 100 Delay Action Dams in Tehsil Dobandi, Gulistan, Killa Abdullah and Chaman area have been completed.
The other work completed in Balochistan included Sirki Taleri Dam (3 small dams in Chaman area), the construction of small dams in Tehsil Khaliqabad District Kalat, the construction of 10 small storage Check Dams in Arenji area, Wadh, District Khuzdar, construction of Bugmaodwan Storage/Delay Action Dam in District Chaghi, construction of Small Dams in District Khuzdar, development of water resources by the construction of small/check dam and construction of delay action dams in different areas of the province.
In KP, 13 small dams have been completed while 14 small dams are under various stages of execution.
In Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), the construction of 600 water tanks and harvesting structures for storage of 4.5 million gallons of water is in progress while a feasibility study for the Bhimber dam project having a storage capacity of 40,000 AF) has been completed. Moreover, a feasibility study of 34 mini dams to store 14,200 AF of water has also been completed with the assistance of donors.
