The Success Story of Tarbela Dam - English Essay

The Success Story of Tarbela Dam

English Essay on "The Success Story of Tarbela Dam"

The land of Pakistan is bestowed with the beauty of nature in abundance and is also crowned with jewels of engineering which stand erect being identity of Pakistan and attraction for tourists from all over the world. if the lush green valleys of Northern Area, central and western part of the country, Azad Kashmir, World’s second highest peak K-2, mountain ranges, world’s seven largest glaciers are the bounty of nature, the world’s largest irrigation system of canals network, earth-and-rock-fill world’s largest Tarbela Darn, Mangla Dam among the world ranking, under-construction Ghazi Barotha Hydroelectric power project (one of the wonders of the world) are among the creations of human genius and skill, the jewels of engineering.

The solar energy in the hot summer months melts the snow deposits and the water descends from the lofty mountain peaks in the northern area. The noisy waters then fall into the Indus river to reach the green valley of Tarbela, after covering a hindrance-free distance of about 1,300 kilometers. Here, the flows of the Indus, called ‘Abasin’ (father of rivers) in the NWFP, comes across an obstruction in its way of thousands of kilometers long journey to the Arabian Sea.educationsight.blogspot.com The man made world’s largest earth-and-rock-filled Tarbela Dam across the river, standing in the way to obstruct the river flows; creates a hundred square miles lake behind the dam.

The water stored in this reservoir helps in saving the bulk from going waste into the sea through the Indus, called Mebran in Sindh, in its journey onward. The storage water is systematically released for irrigation of crops through the network of canals and barrages for the lands of all the four .provinces. The Tarbela dam, built under the gigantic Indus Basin Project, occupying due place in the country’s economy in reference to agricultural and industrial development, provided on its completion, a gross storage of 11.6 million acres of water. As such, a five storage of 9.7 million acre of water became available for the regulated releases to timely irrigate the crops by saving the quantum of the lndus flows from going to the sea. However, with the passage of time, huge deposits of silt coming with the water from the catchment area, a natural phenomenon, has red used the storage capacity of the Tarbela reservoir by about one-fourth. In order to compensate this loss of water storage capacity, new dims/reservoirs are badly needed so as to replenish shortage of water and timely manaj raisin food produce to feed the rising number of mouths and make the future of Pakistan bright by training the coveted goal of self-sufficiency and self-reliance. The proposed Kalabagh Darn is ready for construction. The sooner the national consensus is voted to build the dam, the better it would be in the larger national interest to overcome shortage of water for agriculture in all the four provinces.

The beauty and main attraction of Tarbela Dam project is its Service Spillway while in operation. This is a huge concrete structure, 392 feet high from the river bed and gated at the top. When the lake behind the dam is filled to the brink, at the level of 1,550 high from the Mean Sea Level/Statistics of Pakistan Datum (SPD), as measured in the monsoon season, the obstruction of the spillway gates in the way of the water is removed by gradually raising the top gates functional through an automatic hydraulic system. The gushing water then spills over the massive structure and falls into the 200 feet wide strip at the foot of the spillway. More or less 200,000 cusecs of water, descending from the 392 feet high spillway, at a velocity of 192 kilometers per minute, when falls in the river bed, the fury of dissipation of water presents a beautiful scene, reverse to the famous Niagra Falls, as they say. The rhythm and the music of the water fall and the dissipation is a splendour worth enjoying. There is an auxiliary spillway at a little distance from the service spillway, and in between these two structures, is the fifth tunnel of Tarbela dam, through the rock. This tunnel is a monument of human effort, a master piece of genius and skill of Pakistani engineers and work force. This tunnel measuring about 0.8 kilometre (half a mile) is opened only to release water for irrigation supplies from the reservoir.

The mountain of water stored in the 80 KM long and 3.2 KM wide lake behind the 2.75 KM long dam looks like a thick blue carpet between the green mountains. This water used to play havoc with life and property on its way to the sea in the monsoon days before the dam was built. Nevertheless, the Tarbela dam has tamed the flood water to benefit for service to the humanity. The bulk of water stored here is utilized for timely irrigation of the Rabi and Kharif crops and produce the cheap source of hydro-electric power as a secondary benefit as ‘the primarily multi-purpose project has been constructed to store water for agricultural development. Two power houses functioning here house the aggregate installed capacity of gene rating 3,478 Megawatt (MW) of electricity that constitute one third of WAPDA’s own total power generation capacity (hydel and thermal) and about one-fifth of Pakistan’s power production capacity (WAPDA, KESC and Nuclear). The electric power produced at Tarbela, transmitted through national grid, is benefited by the people of all parts of the country. The Tarbela darn project, keeping in view the monetary gains from both water and power benefits, has already repaid its US $ five billion cost of construction many a time.

The Tarbela dam project is a successful achievement of thousands of Pakistani engineers and workers who gave their blood and sweat, working day and night, and completed the gigantic project within the stipulated period of time in mid 1970s. The project involved the largest civil works ever undertaken in this part of the world at that point in time. The benefits of splendid outcome of their toil are being enjoyed by us today and the coming generations would also reap. About 150 people gave their life to the project during its construction phase. To pay homage to them, a monument stands erect, articulated by giving a rock, close to the dam wherefrom we step on the massive “structure, the shape. This piece of art and human skill will remain the source of remembering the shuhada whose names are carved on it, up to the dooms day.

Right from day one, when construction of Tarbela dam started, thousands of WAPDA engineers and workers are busy at work, day in and day out, bearing the torch of “Hamari Pehchan, Roshan Pakistan” (Our Identity: Brighter Pakistan) ,The hustle and bustle of life at the project — people at work, the rising and winding roads, the rows of milky streetlights, the erect trees, the chirping birds, all tell the success story of the project besides the large inscription with the help of black and while stones collected from the Tarbela valley “Sakhhara lakomul-anhar” on the back of the dam. The water in the lake and the machines producing electric power energy tell the story of development and prosperity.

Terbela Dam is an attraction for the tourists from within the country and rest of the world. WAPDA officials take pride in welcoming them with open arms.

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