ISLAMABAD: The Central Development Working Party (CDWP) on Thursday cleared a total of 26 development projects worth Rs900 billion, most of them in the transport and communication sector.

Presided over by Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Mohammad Jehanzeb Khan, the CDWP itself approved 17 projects worth Rs33bn and recommended nine others worth Rs867bn to the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) for formal approval.

The cleared projects spanned several sectors, including transport and communications, energy, governance, health, higher education, information technology, agriculture and food security, industries and commerce, mass media, physical planning and housing, and water resources.

The CDWP approved two projects related to the agriculture and food sector, namely “National Agriculture Productivity Enhancement Programme” worth Rs3bn and “Pakistan Model Agriculture Research Centre” worth Rs4bn. It also approved a Rs1.093bn energy sector project, “Supply of gas to localities falling within 5km radius of villages/localities of gas-producing fields”.

The CDWP recommended the Rs188.56bn “500 kV Matiari-Moro-Rahim Yar Khan Transmission Line” project to Ecnec.

The meeting recommended to Ecnec the approval of another project of the transport and communication sector “Revised PC-1 Construction of 295 kilometre Lahore-Sahiwal-Bahawalnagar Motorway” worth Rs435.721bn.

Another transport project — “Construction of Chakdara-Chitral Road Project N-45 Kalkatak Chitral” worth Rs10.96bn — was also recommended to Ecnec. The project envisages improvement, widening and rehabilitation of one of the sections of the N-45, i.e. Kalkatak to Chitral (48km), to make it a 7.3-metre-wide single carriageway with a two-meter shoulder on each side.

Published in Dawn, June 28th, 2024