The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has launched work on the 69-megawatt Lawi Hydel Project. Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti inaugurated the construction work on the project in district Chtiral.
Speaking on the occasion, the chief minister said that power outages posed a problem for the entire nation second only to terrorism and the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government had framed a comprehensive action plan to solve the problem once and for all.
He said that 24 hydro power projects were being inaugurated by the provincial government across the province.
Amir Haider Hoti said that the out of the 20 projects, nine of them in Chitral district that would usher in a new era of development and prosperity in the region.
The chief minister said that the project would earn the district Rs20 million every year as electricity royalty, adding that it would multiply many times after the completion of other hydro-power projects.
He said that the royalty rate had been doubled for districts where hydro-power projects are initiated.
He also said that only local people would be employed in the hydro-power projects, adding that non-locals would be employed only if the required qualified persons were not available locally.
MPA Zafar Ahmed Khan, ANP's leader Khadija Sardar, senior ministers Rahimdad Khan, Bashir Bilour and other provincial minister Haji Hidayatullah, Saleem Khan also attended the function.