Getting promised share still a distant dream

SHANGLA:

Locals have threatened protest if the government failed to ensure the promised share of electricity from the Khan Khwar powerhouse.

They said that on July 14, Prime Minister Raja Parveiz Ashraf issued directives to the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) to allocate 4 megawatts electricity from the powerhouse to the district for local consumption. However the federal government has yet to provide the demanded share.

Setting deadline of one week, they warned that thousands of people including schoolchildren will stage a sit-in on the Silk Route. They expressed a lack of confidence in the elected representatives, saying that they were failed to give rights to the residents of the district.

MPA Rashid Khan said that he has raised the issue on every floor and was promised by the high authorities that electricity will be provided from the Khan Khwar Dam to the district but all those promises were not kept.

The 72 megawatt-Khan Khwar Dam and its powerhouse were constructed at a cost of Rs10.73 billion on the right tributary of Indus River.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 4^th, 2013.