EDITORIAL: For a project the state itself calls strategic, it is remarkable that Wapda is only now sounding the alarm about a 132kV line, without which the Dasu hydropower scheme cannot really move from design drawings to concrete. The transmission corridor from Dubair Khwar to Dasu has been obstructed by local protests since 2017; the World Bank has been flagging safety risks, stoppages, and social bottlenecks for years; and yet Wapda is writing, at this late stage, to warn that energisation is a “prerequisite” and that delay will create an “untoward situation” for stakeholders and the government. That is not a new insight. It is an admission that the state has let a critical pre-condition drift until it is almost too late. The facts in the record are not flattering. The physical completion of the 132kV line is now approaching. Earlier, work was suspended because of “local social issues”. Wapda says those issues have been “successfully managed and resolved amicably”, and tower and conductor work is moving forward. At the same time, the World Bank notes that protests have obstructed this same line since 2017, that without it “construction of the dam cannot start”, and that there has been no progress for six months on demolishing houses for which resettlement compensation has already been paid. More than 640 Enhanced Self-Managed Relocation cases are stuck at this basic step, delaying not only the line but also key access infrastructure like KKH Section 2 and the Right Bank road. In that context, it is legitimate to ask what exactly the relevant institutions have been doing all these years. If energisation is as critical as Wapda now stresses, why has this urgency not been reflected in sustained political attention, administrative follow-up and security planning since the first community protests surfaced? Why did it take a backlog of hundreds of uncompensated demolitions and a six-month standstill for these concerns to be articulated in formal correspondence? And when the World Bank is reduced to reminding federal and provincial governments to accompany demolition teams and protect workers, the question is not whether the risks are known. It is why they are repeatedly allowed to crystallise into full-blown crises. The narrow answer is poor coordination between Wapda, the distribution company, local administration and security agencies. The broader answer is institutional complacency. Successive governments have been content to declare Dasu a priority, secure external financing, and then leave the slow, politically uncomfortable work of land acquisition, resettlement and local engagement to underpowered district offices. When that process stalls, the cost is not only in delayed megawatts but in lost credibility with lenders, contractors and affected communities alike. Yet there is no clear line of accountability for the time, money, and reputation being burned while the 132kV line waits to be energised. This brings the debate to the larger issue that Dasu should, but rarely does, trigger: Pakistan’s approach to dams and water storage. For decades, every administration has talked about reservoirs, framed them as essential for energy security and agriculture, and then allowed the agenda to sink under political contestation, bureaucratic inertia and short electoral cycles. Meanwhile, per capita water availability has fallen to levels that international assessments now classify as water-scarce, and the country is routinely listed among the most water-stressed in the world. That is the backdrop against which delays at projects like Dasu must be judged. The contradiction is stark. On paper, large hydropower and storage schemes are treated as national imperatives. In practice, they are managed like routine civil works, with land disputes, social safeguards and local politics treated as afterthoughts rather than central design constraints. The World Bank’s reminder that houses already compensated for resettlement remain standing, blocking key access roads is a symptom of this deeper malaise. If the state cannot complete basic tasks like clearing paid structures, protecting workers, and sequencing enabling infrastructure, it is difficult to see how it will ever build the kind of integrated water storage system that a water-scarce country requires. The Dasu transmission line is therefore more than a technical bottleneck. It is a test of whether Pakistan is capable of aligning its stated priorities with its administrative behaviour. In our case, hydropower and water storage are not optional add-ons in a comfortable surplus economy; they are survival infrastructure in a system where surface flows are volatile and per capita availability is shrinking. Wapda’s late-stage concern over energisation only underlines how far the institutions responsible for delivering those infrastructures have to travel. Unless governments treat these timelines as hard constraints rather than flexible aspirations, each missed window will push the country further into scarcity, and each new project will join a familiar list of ambitions stalled just short of execution. Copyright Business Recorder, 2025