Work unlikely to begin on Daducha Dam next fiscal year.

RAWALPINDI -- Work is unlikely to begin on the Rs6.4 billion Daducha Dam project, which aims to address Rawalpindi`s water shortage, in the 2020-21 fiscal year as the Punjab government has only allocated Rs925 million for it in its annual development programme.

A senior irrigation department official told Dawn that this allocation is not enough to begin the project, which will cost an estimated Rs6.4bn of which Rs3bn will be spent on construction of the dam and Rs3bn on land acquisition. The government released Rs1.8bn to the irrigation department for the initial cost of the project in 2018-19.

The official said land acquisition will not begin in 2020-21 because of the lack of funding. Initial work on the project has been ongoing for the last two years, he added.

`According to the government plan, it will release Rs925m in 2020-21, Rs2bn in 2021-22 and Rs1.8bn in 2022-23,` he said.

The district administration has also imposed section four of the Land Acquisition Act to acquire more than 18,000 kanals of land.

Daducha Dam will be built upstream of Soan River, and rainwater from the Murree and Kahuta...