Islamabad: The high court of Pakistan’s most populous province, Punjab, ordered the federal government on Thursday to build Kalabagh dam, a controversial project that successive governments put on hold because of strong opposition from people of smaller provinces.

The order was passed by the chief justice of the Lahore High Court (LHC), Justice Umar Ata Bandial, in the provincial capital after hearing a number of petitions seeking a judicial order to the government to go ahead with the long-pending project on the Indus River at Kalabagh in Punjab.

The order said the planned dam should be constructed in line with the recommendations of the Council of Common Interests (CCI), a constitutional body on sorting out issues between the units of the federation.

The LHC chief observed that under article 154 of the country’s constitution the federal government is bound to implement the proposals of the CCI.

During the hearing the petitioners had submitted that non-construction of the dam would render the country’s agricultural land barren.

They had stated that the project was in the interest of all provinces and objections were of a technical nature, which could be removed. In 2005 a technical committee had given green signal for the implementation of the project, the petitioners recalled.

Though independent experts have advocated the construction of the water reservoir at Kalabagh to meet the country’s irrigation and power needs, politicians in the northwestern Khyber Pakthunkhwa province and southern Sindh region have always stood in its way.

In immediate reaction, the Awami National Party (ANP), currently in power in Khyber Pakthunkhwa, said the Supreme Court should take notice, on its own initiative, of the LHC decision.

ANP spokesman Zahid Khan said the decision was divisive and it was likely to create rifts between the provinces. He said the project would hurt the interests of the province and submerge its most fertile land.

The Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), which leads the federal ruling coalition, said that the provinces had differences over the Kalabagh dam project and it would not be feasible to build it until all the stakeholders reached an agreement.

Bashir A. Malik, former chief technical adviser of the United Nations and World Bank, has reportedly said Sindh and Pakhtunkhwah would become drought areas in the years to come if Kalabagh dam was not built.