China speeds up construction of dam in Pakistan

BEIJING: China has announced plans to accelerate work on a "flagship" dam in Pakistan to ease pressure on its all-weather ally, weeks after India placed the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance following the Pahalgam terror attack, according to a media report.

The state-owned China Energy Engineering Corporation has been working on the Mohmand Hydropower Project in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in north-western Pakistan since 2019. The project was scheduled to be completed next year.

On Saturday, state broadcaster CCTV reported that concrete filling on the dam had started, marking "a critical construction milestone and a phase of accelerated development for this national flagship project of Pakistan", the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

The Mohmand dam is designed to serve as a multi-purpose facility for power generation, flood control, irrigation and water supply and is designed to generate an estimated 800MW of hydropower and supply 300 million gallons a day of drinking water to Peshawar, the capital and largest city of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.