ISLAMABAD, Oct 19: The centre on Thursday put on hold Rs167 billion acquisition of land for three mega dams - Bhasha, Kalabagh and Akhori - when Sindh and NWFP governments protested over not taking them into confidence while finalising technical studies.
The centre, however, asked the provincial governments to issue letters under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act to ban sale and purchase of land by private parties around the dams’ sites that could trigger cost escalation and speculative buying.
Planning Commission’s member infrastructure and energy Dr Asad Ali Shah told reporters after a meeting of the Central development Working Party that the meeting also allocated Rs150 million to start feasibility studies of six additional sites for nuclear power plants with an expected power generation capacity of about 2,700mw.
He said three projects would have 600mw capacity each and three 300mw each. The sites identified include Qadirabad on the Bulloki link canal, Dera Ghazi Khan canal near the Tuansa barrage, Taunsa-Punjnad canal near Multan, Nara canal near Sukkur, Pat Feeder canal near Guddu and the Kabul River near Nowshera.
This is part of the government target to enhance nuclear power generation to 8,800mw by 2030.
The CDWP meeting, presided over by Planning Commission deputy chairman Dr Akram Shaikh, cleared 37 projects worth Rs232.4 billion, including 20 projects of Rs208 billion in infrastructure and 15 projects in social sectors at a cost of Rs22.6 billion.
When asked if some civil and military officers were buying land in the areas falling in the dams’ sites and in their close vicinity, Mr Shah said the meeting had asked the provinces to try to ensure that land prices did not escalate ahead of land acquisition for the dams and efficiently handle the process.
He sidestepped another question if a member of the ruling party was purchasing land in areas close to the Kalabagh dam and the Akhori dam.
He said the CDWP considered land acquisition for Kalabagh, Bhasha and Akhori dams and felt that the president had already taken a decision to complete five major dams by 2016. Therefore, it constituted a committee led by secretary for water and power Ashfaq Mahmood and comprising members, infrastructure, of the four provinces and the Planning Commission to prepare a detailed and integrated implementation programme for all projects, instead of having a piecemeal approach.
He said the committee had been asked to conduct, keeping in view comments of the provinces, impact assessments project by project and province by province to the environment, displacement, social and resettlement aspects of the dams and suggest what measures had been envisaged to minimise negative impacts.
The committee would complete its task by Nov 30 and the next CDWP meeting in December would consider the implementation programme.
Inside sources said officials of Sindh and the NWFP opposed approval of land acquisition costs by the CDWP that led to constitution of the Ashfaq-led inter-provincial committee to resolve the outstanding issues.
An official said the two provinces were critical of Wapda and the Water and Power Ministry for conducting studies on construction of dams and their land estimation and acquisition without bringing it to the knowledge of the provincial authorities.
