Imran Khan asks citizens to crowdfund 14 billion to build dams

Imran Khan. File Pic

Imran Khan wants Pakistanis to crowdfund a whopping $14 billion for desperately needed dams. While Pakistanis have responded to Khan's plea with enthusiasm, the tally so far is just a drop in the ocean of what's needed to alleviate the country's chronic water crisis.

"We have water storage capacity of only 30 days," cricketer-turned-premier Khan warned in a televised appeal this month. "We already have so many loans that we have problems in paying them back... We alone will have to build this dam, and we can," he said. If the millions of Pakistanis living overseas all contribute $1,000 then Pakistan will have the funds to build the dams, he claimed.

The government's plan is to build two facilities: the Mohmand dam in the country's northwest, widely seen as feasible, and the much larger, troubled Diamer-Basha project in the north, first mooted in the early 2000s.

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