GHAZI, Jan 24: The Ghazi Barotha hydro power project is likely to face more problems as the World Bank has warned the government that it will suspend its $350 million grant for the project after Jan 31 if the Water and Power Development Authority failed to honour its commitments.

Official sources told Dawn that the World Bank had written a letter to the government, warning that it would suspend the grant for the Ghazi Barotha power project if the Wapda did not fulfil its commitment with the bank by Jan 31.

The bank insists that the Wapda should settle the issue of provision of alternative land to the people affected by the Tarbela Dam project, payment of compensation and withdrawal of cases against the displaced people and establishment of water treatment plants at Ghazi and Khalo.

The sources said if the World Bank suspended the grant, the project would run into serious trouble and would be delayed for an indefinite period. The project is already two years behind its schedule.

They said that the Wapda had failed to fulfil its commitment with the World Bank that it would distribute 19,336 acres among the people whose lands were acquired for the Tarbela Dam project 30 years ago.

The Wapda has also failed to provide compensation to some of the affected people, while it filed references against the land owners in the National Accountability Bureau, NWFP.

The sources said that the land was acquired for the Ghazi Barotha project according to the Resettlement Action Plan, approved by the government, Wapda and the World Bank, in 1996-97, and the owners were paid for their land according to market rate under the Land Acquisition Act.

However, six years later Wapda filed references against them with the NAB, seeking recovery of “excess amount” paid to the land owners.

The NAB arrested 20 people and six government officials in these references and put them in the jail, where Sikandar Khan, 82, resident of Attock, died.

Besides, references filed by the Wapda are still pending against over 200 children, women and elderly people in the accountability court in Peshawar, while some of them have been languishing in the jail for the last one and a half year.