By the time the Warsak Dam — the last of the Colombo Plan projects — was finished in 1961 , the Canadian government had spent some $ 331 million . This image shows the view downstream from the dam during construction . Situated on the Kabul River 30 kilometres northwest of Peshawar , Pakistan , it has a total generating capacity of 240,000 KW .
DCL around the world Combatting the spread of communism drove many foreign policy decisions during the Cold War , including the one that led Commonwealth foreign ministers to establish the Colombo Plan when they met in January 1950 in Colombo , Ceylon ( Sri Lanka ). These projects weren ’ t military in nature , but they certainly involved the need for significant construction experience — hence the call for DCL ’ s assistance in supervising the contracts for 11 major projects , including the following :
• the Daudkhel cement plant and Warsak dam in Pakistan ;
• the Mayurakshi hydro-electric plant and Umtru power project in India ;
• the Ganges-Kobadak power project in East Pakistan ( Bangladesh );
• a fish refrigeration plant and the Gal Oya transmission line in Ceylon ( Sri Lanka ).
Dick Johnson ’ s memories of his 1957 project-visiting trip were clear :
The major project was the Warsak Dam , located near the famous Khyber Pass . Nick Cavell and I went to see the Prime Minister of Pakistan , a Mr . Suhrawardy . He told us he could give us only half an hour . Thirty minutes later , an alarm went off . It was in his wristwatch . It was my first and only experience with automated interviews .
These projects , often built by Canadian engineering and construction companies , marked the first time that DCL made its employees available for other government undertakings — for a time , DCL was even maintaining an office in Karachi , Pakistan . This overseas experience would later prove vital to DCL ’ s fight to maintain a core group of skilled employees despite defence and staffing cutbacks .
Carrying on The original idea was to set up DCL for a three-year program to do its work and then disband it . But the work kept coming , and DCL continued to serve : in its second three-year period , it performed close to another $ 400 million worth of work . The value of this work in today ’ s dollars is about $ 3 billion .
BREAKING NEW GROUND DEFENCE CONSTRUCTION CANADA
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