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ISLAMABAD: The Central Development Working Party (CDWP) on Monday cleared a total of 11 projects with a total estimated cost of about Rs71.66 billion.
The meeting presided over by Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Dr Jehanzeb Khan approved eight projects worth Rs31.44bn and recommended another three projects of Rs40.22bn to the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) for approval.
Under the recently revised financial rules, the CDWP has been empowered to approve projects costing no more than Rs10bn while the projects of higher estimated costs are referred by Ecnec once the CDWP clears them on technical grounds.
The projects cleared on Monday related to devolution & area development, energy, governance, physical planning & housing, science & technology, transport & communications and water resources.
The meeting approved Balochistan Livelihood Entrepreneurship Programme worth Rs7.9bn. The objective of the project is to promote employment opportunities and sustainability of enterprises in eight districts of the province affected by prolonged refugee presence.
Project phase-1 for provision of electricity to Dhabeji Special Economic Zone (SEZ) worth Rs3.942bn was also approved. It is designed to facilitate the electrification of 220 kV Dhabeji SEZ grid station to supply ultimate load of 250MW under the applicable regulatory rules of National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) and provisions of SEZ regulations.
Two projects related to governance — the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Revenue Mobilisation and Public Resource Management Programme worth Rs2.83bn was approved and the Pakistan Raising Revenue Project (formally domestic resource mobilisation programme) worth Rs12.480bn — were referred to Ecnec for approval. A project related to physical planning and housing sanitary sewerage system with treatment plant for Gilgit City was also approved at a cost of Rs3.364bn.
Establishment of a centre for artificial intelligence in health sciences worth Rs321.450m was also approved.
Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2019
