Attabad Spillway: FWO seeks to take public in confidence over drainage delay

PT Report

Gilgit, February 5: The Frontier Works Organization has announced measures to take different stakeholders into confidence over the issues it is facing in expansion of the spillway of dammed Hunza River.

According to Express Tribune, a briefing session to this effect will be held for ‘legislators and representatives’ of the affected people on February 14, in which ” senior officials of FWO will share their experiences with elected representatives including members of the legislative assembly and G-B Council”.

FWO has drawn severe criticism from all sectors of the society for failing to drain the lake by 30 metres, a target set by the organization itself, despite of working for almost two years.

Officials have said that huge boulders in the spillway are making it impossible for digging and expansion.

The communities have been demanding of the government to involve China in expansion of the spillway, to which no satisfactory answer has been given by the government, so far.

According to source the GBLA Speaker and MLA Mutabiat Shah had written a letter to Qamar Zaman Kaira (then an interim Governor) in March 2010, in which they had expressed dissatisfaction over the ability of FWO to drain the lake. Kaira, it appears, did not give any heed to the voice of the representatives.

FWO is also likely to give a future strategy for drainage of the lake, which might involve procurement of some vital items from China, some unconfirmed sources have informed.

Currently, as described in the photographs, the spillway has been blocked and around half-dozen excavators and earth-removers are working in the gulley, which is believed to be not more than 10 metres deep.

Water is continuously seeping through the barrier

Efforts of the FWO to lower the water level have not had much impact in the past