The Diamer-Bhasha dam fund has hit Rs10 billion, Prime Minister Imran Khan announced on Tuesday.
I would like to pay tribute to the generosity of the people of Pakistan for raising Rs 10 billion for the Dams’ Fund. pic.twitter.com/9PFbiLYmKk
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) March 12, 2019
“I would like to pay tribute to the generosity of the people of Pakistan for raising Rs 10 billion for the Dams’ Fund,” said the premier.
Mian Saqib Nisar, the then Chief Justice of Pakistan, took the initiative of collecting donations by launching the fund in July, 2018 that was later joined by Prime Minister Imran Khan, making it a joint venture to overcome the country’s water scarcity.
The prime minister in a televised address to the nation last year had appealed to the estimated nine million overseas Pakistanis, particularly those living in European countries and the United States, to contribute at least $1,000 per head “to the noble cause”, and warned that Pakistan could face famine-like conditions by 2025 if new water reservoirs were not built.
“I want to commend Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar [for starting the dams fund], but this was not his job,” he had said. “This was the job of civilian leaders who knew this was going to swell into a crisis but did nothing to thwart it.”
