Monday May 30, 2016
Kabul (BNA) Salma Dam, the greatest dam in Afghanistan is expected to be inaugurated in the presence of Afghanistan-India leaders this week.
Last year, Afghanistan’s cabinet has decided to change the name of Salma Dam into ‘Afghanistan-India Friendship Dam’. However, the dam is to be opened in second year of the government of national unity, but majority of people laud the role and efforts of Mohammad Daud Khan and Ex-President Karzai in its construction. Forty years have passed since the dam’s cornerstone has laid down for the first time, when the first president of Afghanistan, Mohammad Daud Khan started the construction work of the dam with the assistance of India in Chesht district of Herat province on Harirud River. Now, that the construction work is completed, the dam is expected to provide 42mgw power to Herat and its other neighboring provinces and will irrigate 200,000 jeribs of land passing through Harirud to Iran border in Zulfeqar area.
Main reservoir of the Salma Dam that lengths 20Km and widths three kilometers has the capacity of 640 million cubic meters of water. The work of the dam was expected to be concluded within 15 months, but unfortunately, due to insecurity, the construction process faced slowness. In some cases, the armed men have several times attacked the workers and engineers in the dam and killed a number of security guards of the project. At first, the project was estimated to cost $80mln, but due to insecurity and widespread corruption, the amount had considerably increased to several times more, as in 1387 and 1389 the construction work of the dam was going on slowly—a move which made the Afghan government and people hopeless. But in 1389, the India’s cabinet has approved to pay more money for construction of the dam so the project is not left half-completed. Finally, the dam’s completion process cost $300mln and it changed to a most costly dam in Afghanistan. There had been many reports existed during the construction of the dam that a number of countries are trying to distrust the project. In addition to protection, Salma Dam needs better management. According to the experts, a special administrative unit with the budget of the Afghan government is needed for better management of the dam.
Lailuma Noori
