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PESHAWAR, May 12: Minister of State for Water and Power Amir Muqam Khan has said that the centre has made no commitment to the NWFP government on increasing its share of the net hydel profit from Rs6 billion to Rs8 billion during the 2004-05 financial year.
Addressing a press conference at the Wapda House here on Thursday, the minister said that the federal government had not yet decided to pay Rs8 billion to the NWFP and the province would get the capped amount of Rs6 billion.
At the time of presenting the current financial year’s budget in June last year, the provincial finance minister Sirajul Haq had claimed that the centre had agreed to pay Rs8 billion to the province on account of its net hydel profit share during the 2004-05 financial year.
Replying to a question, the minister said that the province would get Rs6 billion as no decision about raising its share had been taken by the federal government.
He, however, said that the dispute regarding the hydel profit share would be looked into by an arbitration tribunal which would start its proceedings once the two sides — Wapda and the NWFP government— decided the core issue of selecting the tribunal’s chairman.
Both the parties have nominated two representatives each for the arbitration.
Mr Khan said that the decision to raise the NWFP’s share also depended on the arbitration as all disputes between the two sides on net hydel profit would be resolved through arbitration.
KALABAGH DAM: The minister said that the Kalabagh and Bhasha dams would be built as the country needed more water reservoirs to meet water requirements.
Apart from irrigation requirements, he said, the country needed to have more hydel power projects to lessen the reliance on the expensive furnace-oil based power generation.
He said the country needed improvement in hydel power generation capacity to keep electricity prices at a reasonable level. Despite the increase in oil prices, he added, Wapda had not raised the power tariff to give relief to small consumers.
“Wapda did not pass on the burden to small consumers,” the minister said, adding that the power authority had requested the federal government to provide it Rs23 billion as subsidy to help it bridge the gap between its income and expenditure.
He held the previous governments responsible for Wapda’s financial problems. “The authority paid Rs54 billion last year to Independent Power Producers (IPPs) as fixed charges in fulfilment of the agreements signed by the previous governments and Wapda was left with no choice but to request the federal government to provide it subsidy,” said the minister.
He said it was only the incumbent government which had seriously pursued the Kalabagh dam project side by side Bhasha dam project to address the problem properly.
Apart from the two projects, he added, the government had also started work on several other hydel power cum irrigation water projects in different parts of the country to get ready for the challenges as the country would experience water shortage in case new water reservoirs were not developed.
He cited Khan Khuwar, Allai Khuwar, Neelam-Jehlum water project and Gomal Zam dam as some of the projects on which work had been started. Whereas, letter of intents had been invited for developing hydel power projects at seven more sites, he added.
Replying another question, he said that the federal government was ready to arrange funding for the provincial government to support it in carrying out 20 projects of constructing dams for which it had also identified sites.
He said the country director of the Asian Development Bank, in a recently held meeting with him, had shown interest to provide loan to the government of the NWFP for the execution of water reservoir projects.
