ISLAMABAD: Communities from Swat’s Bahrain Tehsil have strongly opposed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s plan to build four hydropower projects on the Swat River, warning that the schemes would displace over 80,000 people and destroy the ecological and cultural heritage of the valley.
Addressing a press conference at the National Press Club on Thursday under the banner of the Swat Darya Bachao Tehreek (Save Swat River Movement), representatives of the Torwali, Gujjar and Gawri communities called on the provincial and federal governments, as well as international financiers, to cancel the projects.
Speakers included Zubair Torwali, Inam Ullah, Khan Saeed, Nisan Ahmad Torwali, and Mursaleen Chamot from the Torwali community.
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“The projects will destroy the region’s world-renowned tourism economy, devastate aquatic life, decimate forests, and critically endanger water springs that entire villages depend upon,” said Zubair Torwali.
He said that the flood-prone region, which has suffered three major floods in the past 15 years, would face heightened hazards. “This is not development but devastation,” he warned.
Torwali further alleged: “The government and its financiers are preparing to bury our river alive in concrete tunnels, sacrificing our homes, our heritage, and our future for a negligible amount of expensive electricity. We will not allow it.”
The projects in question — Madyan (207 MW), Asrit-Kedam (229 MW), Kalam-Asrit (239 MW) and Gabral-Kalam (88 MW) — would divert the Swat River into long tunnels, effectively turning a 40-kilometre stretch between Madyan and Kalam into a barren channel, they said.
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The movement representatives argued that these schemes will devastate the river and prove fatal for tourism, economy, environment, forests, climate, aquatic life, and livelihoods in valleys stretching from Madyan to Kalam and further upstream to Utror, including villages such as Satal, Ayeen, Purana Gaon, Giri Lagan, Garhi Upper and Lower, Panjigram, Darolai, Shagai, Ponkiya, Gurnai, Kedam and Torwal.
“These are ancestral lands of the Torwali people, indigenous to the area, now facing a threat to their very existence,” they said.
The speakers criticised the Pakhtunkhwa Energy Development Organization (PEDO) for “incompetence and heavy-handed tactics” and accused the World Bank of hypocrisy, saying it had failed to uphold its own safeguards.
They pointed out that the Torwali community, recognised as Indigenous under World Bank policy, was never consulted. Their right to free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) — a binding international standard — was ignored.
“The World Bank admitted its errors and promised to make an action plan, including formally recognising the Torwalis as Indigenous people. It has been four months since we submitted our input, yet we are still waiting for a response,” said Inam Ullah.
“This silence is complicity. The World Bank is now hiding behind PEDO, which has abandoned dialogue and is intimidating local people through administration to silence peaceful activists.”
The Swat Darya Bachao Tehreek demanded immediate cancellation of the Madyan project in its current form, redesigning it to minimise harm, and the public release of the World Bank’s internal study on the Torwali people.
They called for recognition of the Torwali community as Indigenous and urged development of an Indigenous Peoples’ Framework in consultation with locals. This should include social development measures and livelihood restoration plans.
The movement further urged the government to prioritise sustainable alternatives such as solar and wind power, which are ecologically safer and can be developed with community ownership and consent.
They also demanded preservation and promotion of the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of the Torwali community.