Rs21.534b telemetry system contract awarded

The Water and power Development Authority (Wapda) on Wednesday awarded the contract for the installation of a telemetry system considered to be a source of "incontrovertible empirical evidence" to counter water distribution controversies and complaints by the federating units.

The Rs21.534 billion project, "Installation of Telemetry System for Real-Time Discharge Monitoring at 27 key sites on the Indus Basin Irrigation System" was awarded to a joint venture of CDigital and HBCC along with Siemens as sub-contractor.

The system, after the installation, will be commissioned in December 2026, according to a Wapda statement.

In February, the CDWP had recommended to Ecnec for approval the revised project presented by the Ministry of Water Resources with a total cost of Rs23.834 billion.

The project is proposed to be financed through the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) with a Rs500 million contribution from the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) from its resources for operational expenses.

A similar project completed at the cost of Rs370 million during the Musharraf government by Wapda was handed over to Irsa after a few months of operations. The project subsequently failed for technical reasons and Irsa disowned its operations and closed it following a long controversy among Wapda, Irsa and the federal and provincial governments.

After almost 15 years, the same implementation mechanism is to follow for the Rs23.8 billion project.

In an earlier meeting, the CDWP had deferred the project for several reasons, including increasing the number of monitoring sites from 7 to 25 and resultant cost escalation from Rs2.4 billion to almost Rs24 and further increasing the sites to 27 and no fruitful engagement with stakeholders - provincial governments.

However, the project had been pushed through the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) by Wapda and that "all objections had been addressed".