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 in 1998. The dam site is situated near a place called "Bhasha", hence the name which is 40 km downstream of Chilas town and 315 km from Tarbela Dam. The eight million acre feet (MAF) reservoir with 272-metre height will be the tallest roller compact concrete (RCC) dam in the world. Upon completion, Diamer-Bhasha dam would (i) produce 4800 megawatts of electricity through hydro-power generation; (ii) store an extra 10.5 cubic kilometres (8,500,000 acre⋅ft) of water for Pakistan that would be used for irrigation and drinking; (iii) extend the life of Tarbela Dam located downstream by 35 years; and (iv) control flood damage by the River Indus downstream during high floods. However, in response to using Basha Dam to sideline the Kalabagh Dam, Engineer Anwer Khurshid has stated that "Bhasha dam is no substitute for Kalabagh dam not because of its altitude which is high enough, but because no irrigation canals can be taken out from it because of the hilly terrain. No canals can be taken out from any dam on the Indus except from Kalabagh Dam." It is planned to have a height of 272 meters spillway with fourteen gates each 11.5 m × 16.24 m. The gross capacity of the reservoir will be 10 cubic kilometres (8,100,000 acre⋅ft), with a live storage of 7.9 cubic kilometres (6,400,000 acre⋅ft). Two underground powerhouses are being proposed, one on each side of the main dam having six turbines on each side with a total installed capacity of 4500 MW. On 13 May 2020, the Pakistani government signed a Rs.442 billion contract with a joint venture of China Power and Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) for the construction of the dam. The eight million acre feet (MAF) reservoir with 272-metre height will be the tallest roller compact concrete (RCC) dam in the world. Long-term challenges facing the project since its inception in 1998 including securing funding from international lenders, groups such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and IMF were unwilling to lend because the dam was in territory disputed by Pakistan and India. However, the government of Imran Khan addressed these financial challenges in 2021 by issuing Pakistan's first-ever green bond, the bond received an emphatic response from investors as it was oversubscribed with 4 times greater number of investors willing to invest than required, raising $500 million of capital for this project. From Wikipedia