Mohmand Dam's diversion system is expected to be completed by November, and the project should be finished in 2026, Chairman of WAPDA Lt Gen (Retd) Sajjad Ghani was informed at a briefing. The Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) is building the Mohmand Dam Hydropower Project on the River Swat, upstream of the Munda Headworks in the Mohmand District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

When the WAPDA chairman visited the site, he was briefed that by December of previous year, the majority of the damages to the diversion system caused by the disastrous flood last summer had been fixed. Construction activity is now moving forward day and night on all 11 of the project's locations.

The chairman went over several sites' ongoing building projects, such as the irrigation system, power intake, powerhouse, switch yard, diversion tunnels, main dam, and spillway, and reviewed the work. He urged project management to strictly adhere to the rules established for the project's construction.

He said that concentrated efforts are required to execute this huge project in accordance with the timeline after reviewing the before and post-flood scenarios. The project management team at WAPDA, the consultants, and the contractor will need to take a proactive approach in this regard, he continued.

Later, the general manager and project director of the Mohmand Dam Project provided an update on the status of the project, accompanied by the consultants and the contractor. Mohmand Dam is an 800MW project with many uses. When finished, it would be able to hold 1.2 million acre feet of water, which will help reduce flood damage in Peshawar, Charsadda, and Nowshera. It will also irrigate 18,237 acres of new land in Mohmand and Charsadda in addition to augmenting 160,000 acres of existing land.

The dam will supply the National Grid with 2.86 billion affordable and environmentally efficient hydroelectric power units annually. 300 million gallons of water per day would also be delivered to Peshawar by the project, which is expected to generate Rs51.6 billion benefits annually. A total of Rs4.5 billion has been set aside for confidence building measures to boost socio-economic development in the project region.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk