ISLAMABAD: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government planned to construct three dams in Tank and Dera Ismail Khan districts to help increase food production through provision of adequate irrigation water.
An official of the province’s irrigation department informed WealthPK that the KP government was planning to convert the barren land of Tank and Dera districts into agricultural land. “This initiative would help meet demand for food and resolve water scarcity issue.”
He said the provincial government planned to construct three small dams, namely Tank Zam Dam, Chodwan Zam Dam and Daraban Dam, to irrigate 109,721 acres of land and also generate 25.5MW of electricity to feed nearby villages.
The official further said that these dams would help bring an ‘agriculture revolution’ to the area and create many job opportunities for the local people. “These dams will also resolve the problem of food insecurity and drinking water shortage. The project will also help improve the groundwater table.”
The official said that another major reason for building dams was to protect against flooding in the future. “Floods have badly damaged millions of acres of farmland in Tank, creating food shortage in the district.”
The irrigation department’s official also informed WealthPK that construction work on seven small irrigation dams and water reservoirs had already been initiated, which would be completed at an estimated cost of Rs9 billion and would help irrigate 14,135 acres of barren land.
“The construction of Gomal Zam Dam has protected the Dera city from floods,” he added.
The official said that climate change-driven water insufficiency, urbanisation, lack of investment and rising production costs posed a challenge to national food security. “The substantial shortage of agriculture output can be bridged by transforming our barren lands into fertile lands.”
The official said according to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, around 1.46 million hectares of land in Punjab was categorised as cultivable wasteland. “The land is fit for cultivation but is not cultivated due to numerous reasons, such as water logging and salinity, electricity, technology and resource constraints or inadequate capital.”
“Surveys have shown that there are belts of land in many areas of KP and Punjab where sweet water aquifers exist. We have not been irrigating these belts since the local communities are not aware of the availability of these aquifers,” he added.
The official suggested the government and the corporate sector should come forward and form public-private partnerships to achieve sustainable growth. “The government must increase its efforts to institutionalise awareness and set up vocational centres to promote agriculture education.”
