Construction of New Balakot City stalled

NDMA chief vows to clear the backlog of projects within two years

ISLAMABAD: Despite a suo moto notice taken by the Supreme Court of Pakistan and assurances from the federal government, funds were not released for the construction of the New Balakot city.

This was revealed during a briefing as the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Chairman Lt Gen Muhammad Afzal and other senior officials of the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) visited the under-construction city on Friday to identify the impediments in the project and to speed up the process of reconstruction of Balakot.

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and the provincial ERRA (PERRA) gave a detailed briefing to the NDMA chairman on Balakot in light of the Supreme Court’s orders.

They said that the project had faced prolonged delays owing to the lack of encumbrance-free land and financial paucity.

The apex court had formed a committee comprising members from the ministries of finance and planning division, officials of ERRA and K-P. The K-P chief secretary was the chairman of the committee. The committee and the petitioners had formally agreed to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU), duly approved by the chief justice of Pakistan, to revise the project to Rs16 billion and task ERRA with devising the project concept-I (PC-I) document and to have it approved from the executive committee of the national economic council (ECNEC). Moreover, the Planning Commission had promised to make a billion rupees available to ERRA in the fiscal year 2018-19 while funds would be made available smoothly in the subsequent financial years.

However, officials said that the promised sum did not arrive during the ongoing financial year

Later, Lt Gen Afzal said that they were trying to identify the impediments in the construction of the New Balakot City Project and implement the orders of the Supreme Court in letter and spirit.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 15^th, 2019.