JOIN USPakistan must rethink its plans to build the Diamer Bhasha dam across the Indus river. The hydro-electric power project is illegal as it is located in Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK). India has protested Pakistan’s recent signing of an agreement with China on construction of the dam as it violates India’s territorial sovereignty. By pressing ahead with the project, Pakistan is worsening already fraught relations between the two countries. The Diamer Bhasha dam is expected to provide power-scarce Pakistan with 4,500 MW of electricity, reduce water scarcity, create 16,500 jobs and boost the country’s construction industry. The project was first conceived four decades ago but failed to take off as it ran into several problems, a major one being the difficulty Pakistan encountered in raising funds for it. Since the project will be located in disputed territory, funders, including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, were reluctant to sink money in it. Prospects of funding brightened when China stepped in to bring it under the ambit of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. However, the terms China put forward in 2017 were reportedly unacceptable to Pakistan. That changed a little over a week ago when China and Pakistan clinched a deal. Frontier Works Organisation, the commercial arm of the Pakistani military, has now signed a $5.8 billion contract with a consortium led by a Chinese state-run company. Under the new deal, the project will be funded by public sector development funds and commercial loans and China will hold a 70% stake in the project.
Besides India, the Diamer Bhasha project has strong opponents at home in Pakistan. The dam is likely to inundate 32 villages in Diamer district alone. Tens of thousands of people living along the Indus will be displaced. They will lose their homes and livelihoods. The project has enormous social, economic and ecological implications. Mass protests against the project can be expected in the coming months.
In a bid to strengthen its hold over Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan will be holding elections there in June in a sort of signal to the international community of both Islamabad’s hold over the disputed region as well as of its democratic face. These moves, however, cannot erase the fact that the Diamer Bhasha project is illegal. It is unfortunate that despite its illegality and the enormous costs it will inflict on Gilgit-Baltistanis and on Pakistanis themselves, the Pakistani government is determined to press ahead with it. It should rethink its decision. It is not too late to pull back from a disastrous decision.