Pakistan to build 4,500 megawatt dam: UPI

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 21 (UPI) -- The Pakistani government, faced with chronic power shortage in the country, approved a $10.8 billion, 4,500 megawatt Diamer-Bhasha dam on the Indus River.

The dam project approved Thursday by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council will have a foreign funding component of about $3.8 billion, the Dawn newspaper reported.

Water and Power Minister Pervez Ashraf said construction on the dam in northern Pakistan, about 300 miles from Islamabad, would begin by October 2010 and should be completed in eight to 10 years.

"This is the biggest project ever approved in the history of Pakistan. We spent 33 years in discussions while the country's biggest dam's capacity was declining because of sedimentation," Ashraf said. "We have begun installing major hydropower projects to overcome the energy crisis."

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