ISLAMABAD, Jan 15: The worsening law and order situation is one of the main reasons behind inordinate delays in completion of five major projects of the ministry of water and power.

The written reply to questions submitted in the National Assembly on Thursday by Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervaiz Ashraf lists causes of the delay in completion of the projects despite billions of rupees having been spent on them.

The Sabakzai dam project on which Rs1.53 billion has been spent so far could not be completed because of the law and order situation and local people’s ‘undue interference’. Due to the situation in Balochistan, construction material could not be taken to the site and frequent strikes in the province in preceding years also impeded work.

The completion of Kurram Tangi dam on which Rs50 million has been spent has been delayed because of law and order in North Waziristan.

Kidnapping of Chinese engineers on Oct 9, 2004, severely affected work on the Gomal Zam dam on which Rs3.42 billion has been spent so far. The contractor stopped work and the contract was eventually terminated and awarded to the Frontier Works Organisation. The project is scheduled to be completed in October next year.

A survey for the Kachhi Canal project phase-I was held up due to landmines planted by militants in Rajanpur district. Another survey has been delayed by 11 months in Dera Bugti district for the same reason. The project is scheduled to be completed by June next year. So far an amount of Rs20.155 billion has been spent on it.

Rainee Canal, another multi-billion rupee project, is facing a delay for a number of reasons, ranging from late approval of the PC-I, cancellation of several tenders and poor law and order in the project area. The project has so far consumed Rs6.37 billion.

In reply to another question, the water and power minister said that since February last year, the government had been able to generate up to 751MW.

“The government is also working on 12 projects with independent power producers to produce 2,277MW by the end of this year.”

The minister claimed that there would be no loadshedding from December.