LAHORE: The government is planning a tunnel to change the course of the Swat River for the 207MW Madyan Hydropower Project. This would bring about a disaster to the population on both sides of the river on a 14km long stretch. A documentary, Swat River-the Broken Vein, released on Youtube last night, highlights the issues likely to be caused by the project.

`Twelve 1(ilometer long tunnel would affect 20 villages, turn 33 fresh water springs and impact 65,000 people. Eighty big hotels besides tourists` resorts and many more small businesses that depend on tourism would be affected,` Zubair Torwali, a local poet and writer is seen giving details in the documentary.

Speaking to Dawn, Tanveer Ahmad, the writer and director of the film, says the policy of dams is being followed in the name of development but it is very problematic. `It is the local community that pays the heaviest price. The government pays them compensation for only land and houses but what about the damage to their culture and language.

He says that only the official version is presented before the people and his objective behind mal(ing the film is to bring the indigenous voices to the fore.

Tanveer thinks that it`s the local community that should be central to the decision-making and they should be asl(ed whether they want such 1(ind of development or not. `There are other sources of electricity and energy that should be explored instead of disturbing the ecosystem and natural courses of rivers` suggests Tanveer, who spent about six months on the film along with his crew at the Lok Sujag.The film shows that if the tunnel is built for the Madyan Hydropower Project, the whole area around the river would turn barren. `We have already seen what happened to River Daral which is now a mere dirty drain,` a local man says.Daral project is a parallel narrative in the film and it turned out to be a nightmare for the people. It was built on a tributary of Swat river near Madyan. It left the locals high and dry and tall promises made by the government were never met. It`s also built through a tunnel in the mountain and the tributary that had 10/12 foot water earlier is dry now. It turned about a dozen springs dry and stopped turbines that would produce electricityfor the locals.

`When we reached Daral there was no road or any proper way to reach the population as floods had destroyed everything,` says Tanveer Ahmad. The floods were also caused by the dam as the water comes with a mammoth flow when water is released suddenly duringthe rainy season.

According to members of Darya-e-Swat Bachao Tehreek, they were promised that nothing would happen as only some water of the river would be used for the Daral project but they were all lies told by the government (ANP). Bahrain locality was affected most by the project.

`Right now in Madyan there are 100 plus hotels, 10 to 12 people work in each hotel and 1,000 to 1200 families would lose livelihood if there is no river in the town because tourists come here due to the river,` a member of the Tehreek says, adding that 60 to 70pc population of the town is dependent on tourism and tourism is dependent on the river.

The film projects the issue of Torwali language, spoken by 150,000 in the Madyan area. `The Torwali speakers say that they are indigenous to the area living since BC. If they have to migrate from the area and scatter around in cities, their language would die, fears Tanveer Ahmad.