As reported in the Nation of Aug 20 on page 14, a PPP leader has said the whole nation will build Bhasha Dam as it would benefit the country by Rs 1.3 billion a year through cheap hydel electricity, $635 million through water for irrigation and $300 million through carbon credits, besides saving of $2.85 billion under the head of oil import. It would generate 4,500MW cheap hydel electricity, besides providing over 6MAF water for agriculture. President Zardari believes that the Bhasha Dam project is a gateway to the nation’s progress and critical to meeting its energy needs. PPP government believes that the dam will bring about a revolution in the agriculture sector, as well as in agri-based industries offering tens of thousands of job opportunities. The PPP leader is talking as if all this will happen tomorrow and not in 12 years time which the dam will take to build. 12 years is a long time to ask the people to continue to suffer. Particularly when Kalabagh Dam can bring all these benefits in half the time. Is the PPP leader against Kalabagh Dam merely because it is in Punjab? And yet PPP calls itself a party of the federation. Meanwhile my thanks to Muhammad Afzal Sadiq for a very comprehensive letter on Kalabagh Dam. As to the small and medium dams that the government is going ahead with, Chairman Wapda has said, “Small and medium-sized dams in remote areas were useful only for those areas as they could not be irrigated through the Indus Basin irrigation system”. Their meager storages will not augment the flow of any major river. The power produced will also be for local use only as it cannot be carried through miles long transmission lines to feed the national grid. Valuable time will be lost before the truth about small and medium dams becomes known.ENGR KHURSHID ANWER, Lahore, August 18.