Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has convened a special meeting today (Tuesday) to review the progress of mega projects and may reprioritise Public Sector Development Programme to divert funds for early completion of hydro-power projects.
An official said that some important decisions are expected to be taken by the meeting about mega water and power projects like Nandipur, Kohala and Neelum-Jhelum with possibility of diversion of funds from other PSDP projects to hydro-power projects and removal of other procedural difficulties. They said foreign funding projected against the water and power projects seem unlikely.
The high ups of Ministry of Water and Power, Planning Commission and Finance Ministry would brief the Prime Minister about available fiscal space. The component of foreign fund in the PSDP for water of power projects did not materialise in the first quarter of current fiscal year and immense pressure from the opposition against the load shedding has created a sense of urgency in the government quarter to speed up work on mega projects.
Official figures for PSDP releases for the first quarter (July-September) of the current fiscal year revealed that projected bilateral and multilateral donor assistance against 35 hydro projects did not materialise. According to an official of the Planning Commission implementation of these projects is very critical for the power sector in the long run. The multilaterals and bilaterals donors have not disbursed any of the Rs 1.2 billion pledged during the first quarter of current fiscal year for Golan Gol Hydro-Power Project.
An amount of Rs 47 million was pledged for Khan-Khawar Hydro-Power Project but to-date nothing has been disbursed. Similarly, foreign aid of Rs 700 million was pledged for Allai Khawar Hydro-Power Project in Batagram-Besham district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa from Abu Dhabi Fund but nothing has been disbursed during the first quarter. The funds projected against other hydro projects have also not been materialised during the first quarter.
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