QUETTA: The Mangi dam — intended to supply water to Quetta — remains incomplete three years after its scheduled deadline, despite an expenditure of Rs19.80 billion, the Public Accounts Committee of Balochistan was informed during a meeting with senior officials of the Public Health Engineering Department.

The dam was supposed to be completed in June 2022 and it was to supply eight million gallons of water per day to Quetta while the daily requirement of the provincial capital is 60m gallons. The committee, presided over by Asghar Ali Tareen, expressed serious concern over the delay in completion and the escalation of costs of the project, noting that the dam cost has already seen a 42 per cent increase, reaching almost Rs19.800bn in 2025, yet it is still incomplete.

The officials of the PHE assured the committee that the project would be completed by March 31st, 2026.

The committee conducted a detailed review of the performance of the Public Health Engineering Department, development projects, ongoing schemes, financial irregularities and audit objections.

According to audit report, the project’s original cost was Rs9,334.078m but it has now gone up to Rs13,247.893m, an increase of Rs3913.815m.

The committee told the PHE secretary that the project must now be completed by the new deadline.

The meeting was informed that, according to the audit, various PHE divisions made excessive payments to contractors between 2019-20 and 2021-22, resulting in a loss of Rs64.131m.

The audit teams reported violation of engineering standards and rules, excessive wattage in solar system designs, and noted that relevant divisional officers did not attend DAC meetings.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2025