Neelum Jhelum project: ‘Hasty project launch caused huge losses’

Project was started without studying rock structure, says WAPDA chief

ISLAMABAD: The 969 megawatts Neelum-Jhelum hydropower project was launched in haste that caused immense losses, including loss of human lives, said the chairman of Water and Power Development Authority on Wednesday.

“Work on 58-kilometre-long tunnels was started without studying rock structure and geology that led to rock burst and damages, including loss of precious human lives,” Zafar Mehmood told a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). However, he quickly added that the project would have been delayed for years, if the government had waited for completion of the studies.



The meeting was convened to discuss Rs990 billion audit objections on the accounts of the Ministry of Water and Power and its attached departments during the last year of the Pakistan Peoples Party government.

All this was done to secure water rights, as India was also constructing Kishanganga dam upstream, Mehmood said. Pakistan has already lost its case against the Indian project in the International Court of Arbitration and will not be in a position to tap the full potential of the Neelum-Jhelum project due to a reduced water flow.

Initially estimated in 1989 to cost Rs15.2 billion, the project cost has ballooned to Rs414 billion, according to Wapda documents submitted to the Planning Commission.



Mehmood’s statement affirms the findings of an inquiry report that has established that the project’s ‘design was defective’ and the scheme – that is funded by charging 10 paisa on every electricity unit consumed and by obtaining expensive commercial loans – is highly mismanaged.

The inquiry was ordered by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) in 2013 when Wapda sought an increase in the project cost from Rs84.5 billion to Rs275 billion.

The project management had deployed expensive tunnel-boring machines, which were bought at an exorbitant cost of Rs19.5 billion, on the claim that the project would start generation by November 2016.



The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is already investigating allegations of kickbacks in procurement of Rs19.5 billion worth of tunnel-boring machines.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 10^th,  2015.