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Pakistan will become a desert in absence of maga dams

Jahangir AkhtarKallar Syedan (Rawalpindi): Social activist Jahangir Akhtar on Sunday said Pakistan will become a desert in absence of maga dams for which amendment in the Constitution and a new as well as just formula for payment of royalty is needed.

An amendment has become imperative in the clause 2 of the Article 161 of the Constitution to save Pakistan from becoming a failed and barren state, he said while talking to reporters here.

Jahangir Akhtar who is also Chief Organiser of Anjuman-e-Mutasreen Mangla Dan, Pothohar Region said that one of the reasons behind delay in projects of national importance is that Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa received around 30 per cent of the total royalty and payment were delayed due to faulty formula.

Constitution says that profit of the dam would be bagged by the province where the power station would be located which means the province which would sacrifice millions of acres of land for catchment would not get anything.

He said that Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa would get nothing for sacrificing land for Kalabagh dam as its powerhouse would be located in the Mianwali district of Punjab which will have a right on the profit.

Jahangir Akhtar said that AJK and Pothohar have sacrificed land for Mangla dam but profit is being bagged by AJK as the power house in located there. The people of Pothohar feel deprived due to the defective royalty formula.

Similarly, the dispute between Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa over profit of Basha dam is due to the same Constitutional clause which has been blocking national development since decades.

He said that the issue can be resolved through an amendment which paves way for the profit of any dam to the province which sacrifices millions of acre of land and not the province which gives a small piece of land for the power station.

I am in talks with some legislators who would present the amended bill in the parliament, he informed.

 

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