KOHAT: A mega water supply project worth Rs1.54 billion for the oil and gas rich constituency of PK-81 in Shakardarra has hit snags as only Rs100 million have so far been released since 2017 due to which it may not meet its stipulated completion period of 2020, an official of public health engineering department confided to Dawn on Tuesday.

It is pertinent to mention here that oil and gas have been pumped since 2002 in Shakardarra, where underground water is not suitable for drinking and is also hundreds of meters below the surface. Keeping that in mind the mega water project was launched.

Since the discovery of natural resources the people and the oil exploration companies had struck a ‘water for oil’ deal in 2005 after which water tankers were providing the commodity to the households at a cost of Rs1.2 million a month.

MPA Maj retired Shahdad Khan told Dawn that a water scheme was sanctioned and work was also started on it in 1993 when his father was minister in the government of PPP, but it failed due to electricity problem and funds were wasted.

The Rs1.54bn scheme was approved in 2017

Earlier, a scheme named Chashmi water supply scheme was approved and several times millions of rupees were sanctioned for it by then ANP government in 2008 keeping in view the acute scarcity of water, which also went down the drain.

Former law minister Imtiaz Shahid Qureshi got stay on the scheme when he was not MPA due to rivalry with former MPA Dr Iqbal Din Fana.

This new water supply project could also meet the same fate because tubewells would be run on test basis, and if successful, then main pipeline and service lines would be laid besides construction of six water tanks in three union councils in Rehmanabad rural and one of Shakardarra urban, public health engineering department’s SDO Hafeezullah Khan said.

He said the PC-1 of the project was approved in 2017 with allocation of Rs30 million. Similarly, he said in 2018-19 Rs750 million were required, but the government released only Rs70 million. He said the number of water tanks might be increased to seven or eight.

Mr Hafeezullah said total length of two portions of the main pipeline was about 31 kilometres. He under the circumstances the project might be delayed by two to three years.

He said due to electricity problem the tubewells would be run on solar system for which tenders were yet to be launched.

Meanwhile, the local people had suggested that the only solution to the problem was the early construction of the dam sanctioned in the adjoining Mianwali district which would raise the underground water level and there would be no need of spending billions of rupees on water schemes.

MPA Shahdad Khan said he had been told by the officials that the new scheme would be successful but timely release of funds was required for it.

He ruled out the suggestion that Shakardarra could get a separate feeder from the grid station of adjacent Mianwali district, and said for that to happen PC-1 of the project had to be revised.

He said heavy duty solar system was the only solution because of excessive electricity loadshedding in the area as the water was to be pumped from the rivers.

Published in Dawn, January 2nd, 2019