A ceremony was held in Islamabad on 11 May for the signing of a contract for the development of the Diamer Basha dam and hydropower project.
Those present at the signing included the Federal Minister for Water Resources H.E. Muhammad Faisal Vawda, the Chairman of WAPDA Lt General Muzammil Hussain (Retd), Member Power of WAPDA Mr Javed Akhtar, Member Water of WAPDA, Mr Abdul Zahir Khan Durrani, the General Manager of DBDC, Mr Aamir Bashir Chaudhry, and the representatives of the Diamer Basha Consultants Group.
Diamer Basha Consultants Group is a Joint Venture consisting of six partners. The Lead company is National Engineering Services Pakistan (Pvt) (NESPAK), and the partners are Dolsar Engineering Inc Co of Turkey, MWH International Inc (MWH), Pöyry Switzerland Ltd, Associated Consulting Engineers ACE Ltd, and MM Pakistan Pvt Ltd.
The Diamer Basha RCC dam, which will be 272 m high, is on the Indus river, upstream of the Dasu dam and hydro project, which is under construction. The site is 315 km upstream of Tarbela dam, some 180 km below the town of Gilgit and 40 km downstream of Chilas, the headquarter of District Diamer in Gilgit-Balistan.
The gross storage capacity of the reservoir is 9.99 x 109m3, and the live storage of the reservoir is 7.89 x 109m3. The project has two underground powerhouses, one on each abutment, with an installed capacity of 4500 MW.
The signing ceremony for the Diamer Basha project in Turkey.
