Diamer Bhasha Dam

Diamer-Bhasha Dam is a concreted-filled gravity dam, in the preliminary stages of construction, on the River Indus between Kohistan district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Diamer district in Gilgit Baltistan, Pakistan administered Kashmir. Its foundation stone was laid by the then Prime Minister of Pakistan Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif in 1998. In January 2006, the Government of Pakistan under President Pervez Musharraf announced the decision to construct 5 multi-purpose storage dams in the country during next 10–12 years. According to the plan, the Diamer-Bhasha Dam project was proposed to be built in the first phase. In November 2008, the Executive Committee of National Economic Council formally approved the project. Council of Common Interests Pakistan, a constitutional body representing the provinces, also approved the construction of the dam. The Prime Minister of Pakistan Yousaf Raza Gillani laid the foundation stone of the project on 18 October 2011.

  • Dam Type: Roller Compacted Concrete (RCC)
  • Height: 272 meters
  • Purpose: water storage, flood mitigation, divert water for irrigation and power generation
  • Spillways: 14 gates
  • Gross Storage: 8.10 MAF (million-acre feet)
  • Live Storage: 6.4 MAF (million-acre feet)
  • Irrigate: at least 1.2 million acres of the agricultural area
  • Installed Capacity: 4500 MW
  • Cost: Rs1.406 trillion

Detailed drawings of the dam were completed by March 2008. As of August 2012, the project faced several setbacks due to major sponsors backing out from financing the project, as World Bank and Asian Development Bank both refused to finance the project as according to them its location is in disputed territory and asked Pakistan to get a NOC from neighboring India.

On 20 August 2013- Finance Minister of Pakistan, Ishaq Dar claimed to have convinced the World Bank and the Aga Khan Development Network to finance the Diamer-Bhasha Project without the requirement of NOC from India. He also said that the Asian Development Bank, Aga Khan Rural Support Programme and Aga Khan Foundation had agreed to become lead finance manager for the project.

After receiving 17,000 acres of land at the cost of PKR 5.5 billion from Government of Gilgit-Baltistan, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on December 5, 2016 approved, in principle, the financing plan for the Diamer-Bhasha dam and ordered the secretary of water and power to start physical work on the dam before the end of 2017.

On 14 November 2017- Pakistan dropped its bid to have the dam financed under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor framework as China placed strict conditions including on the ownership of the project. China had projected the cost of the dam to be $14 billion.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan started fund raising through bank accounts and cellular companies and directed the government to begin construction on the dam on July 4, 2018. Chief Justice Saqib Nisar gave a donation of 1 million Pakistani rupees for the construction of the two dams. On 13 May 2020, the Pakistani government signed a Rs.442 billion contract with a joint venture of China Power and Frontier Works Organization (FWO) for the construction of the dam.

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