A blame game is holding up reconstruction of the Salma dam project in Herat.
In 2006, India committed to funding the completion of the dam on the Hari River in Chesht-e-Sharif district, Herat province.
In 2006, India committed to funding the completion of the dam on the Hari River in Chesht-e-Sharif district, Herat province. But the dam, which was scheduled to open in September 2011, missed the deadline.
Now a fresh deadline is just eight months away (mid-March 2013), but work on the project, which the Indian government has promised to complete, has been crawling, according to officials. A recent report published in The Hindu, an Indian daily, blames the delay on India’s continued security concerns as well as the lack of confidence of Afghan contractors in the project. Also Indian officials were reported saying it would be difficult to meet the rising costs as a result of delays.
The cost of the dam was initially calculated at 200 million dollars. The revised estimate is roughly four times the planned cost. When completed the project has the capacity to irrigate 75,000 hectares of agricultural land, and generate 42 MW of electricity for power-hungry Afghanistan.
Crippled by conflict
The Salma dam was originally built in 1976 but was damaged during the civil war in Afghanistan. Reconstruction was started by WAPCOS, an Indian company, in 1988, but it was left incomplete because of the continuing conflict.
Two other hydroelectric projects in eastern Afghanistan, Bakhshabad in Farah province and Murghab dam in Badghis, have similarly been missing targets for completion. The authorities say as a result 70 percent of the water is flowing into Iran and Turkmenistan respectively. Fazal Ahmad Zakeri, the head of water management in Herat province, told Killid: “When built the Salma dam will be 550 metres long and 107 metres wide with a storage capacity of 633 million cubic metres.” Basheer Ahmad Ahmadi, the head of promotion department, Herat Agriculture Directorate, says authorities are counting on providing irrigation to 40,000 hectares of new agricultural land.
Electricity in every home
Sher Ahmad Ghiriani, the head of the electricity department in Herat, believes Salma dam will light every home in the province. At present the province imports 85 MW of electricity from its neighbours, Turkmenistan and Iran, to electrify 60 percent of its population.
According to research on the ground done by Killid in Chesht-e-Sharif and interviews with the head of the Indian company WAPCOS, 75 percent of the work on the ground on the Salma dam has been done, but security problems which have dogged the project from the start, are delaying the completion process.
Work on the project was held up by the assassination of three commanders and the governor of Chesht-e-Sharif district, Abdul Qudus, in mid-January 2010. The governor had been instrumental in pushing the construction of the dam. Media reports blamed the set-back on interference from Iran, which has been accused of funding localTaleban to oppose the construction of the dam. The dam project would reduce the flow of the river into Iran.
A year ago work on the project ground to a halt when workers went on strike over non-payment of salaries. Killid published a report on July 17, 2011. Then Indian consul general in Heart, Tara Chand, said in an interview with Killid that the problem was solved. Tara Chand had confirmed India’s commitment to the project. “The Salma dam is one of our promises to Afghanistan. When we started the project we considered the risks as well. We will complete the project at any price.”
Has there been a change of heart?
