Sarda Dam

The Sarda Dam (Pashto: د سردې بند), also known as Band-e Sarda (Dari: بند سرده), is located near the town of Sardeh Band, in the eastern part of Andar District of Ghazni Province of Afghanistan. It is about 22 km (14 mi) to the northwest of Sharan, which is the capital and largest city of Paktika Province. Part of its reservoir, which provides fresh water to much of southern Ghazni, is in neighboring Paktika. In recent years, the locals proposed to turn the area into a national park, similar to that of the Band-e Amir National Park in Bamyan Province.

The Sarda Dam was constructed in 1967 (1346 in the Islamic calendar) by engineers from the then-Soviet Union, during the reign of Mohammad Zahir Shah. The maximum capacity of its reservoir is around 260 million cubic meters of water. It provided water for irrigation purposes to more than 67,000 jeribs of agricultural land. The reservoir is fed by the Jilga River which flows north–south from Paktia and Paktika provinces. The river is also labeled as the Gardez River north of the dam and the Sarda River south of the dam (by the National Atlas of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, page 13-14).

The dam system contains an earth dam, intake, spillway, one main canal (which is divides into two branches (the 21.5-kilometer Right Canal with 6 sub-canals and the 30-kilometres Left Canal with 16 sub-canals) and administration buildings.