ISLAMABAD, Sept 26: The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) meets on Saturday to approve 25 new development projects worth around Rs175 billion, officials at the Planning Commission told Dawn on Friday.
To be presided over by Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz, the meeting will also review the disbursement and utilization of funds during the first quarter (July-September) of 2003-04 under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) allocations.
This would be the second quarterly meeting of the current fiscal and would be followed up by the meeting of National Economic Council (NEC) by early December, the officials said.
The government has already decided to hold quarterly meetings of Ecnec and biannual meetings of NEC for close monitoring of project implementation and utilization of funds to remove any irritants towards timely completion of the development projects. The NEC, headed by the prime minister, is the highest economic decision-making body.
The projects relating to water, energy, communication, information technology and telecom, physical planning, railways, fisheries and education sectors would come under discussion.
Four major projects in the irrigation sector would come up for approval before Ecnec. These include Rs63 billion raising of the Mangla Dam; Rs1.1 billion Sabakzai Dam; Rs32.5 billion Kachhi canal project and detailed engineering design and tender documents (Stage-II) of Bhasha Dam.
Ecnec would consider a Rs10-million project of purchase of land and construction of new office building for National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Quetta, utilization of Japanese emergency grant for Afghan refugees in NWFP, procurement of drilling rigs, spare parts, tools and accessories for provision of drinking water to Afghan refugees in the border areas of Balochistan and an 18-mw hydropower project at Naltar in Gilgit.
The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council would also approve a Rs400-million GSM mobile telecom system for Azad Kashmir, laying of optical fibre cable along with transmission system between Mansehra and Gilgit at a cost of Rs500 million and a project for acquisition of training vessel and fisheries research for the marine fisheries department.
The meeting would also approve a Rs501-million hi-tech border monitoring system to link up Pakistan’s 20 border entry and exit points with a centralized system.
The Ecnec would also approve a Rs349-million energy sector capacity enhancement programme to determine the nature and scope of KESC’s retrenchment and re-deployment
programme to adequately
safeguard the livelihoods of workers to be made redundant under the utility’s privatization plan.
The meeting would also approve a Rs5.87-billion project to induct as many as 1,300 new high capacity wagons in Pakistan Railways. The project envisaged import of 420 CBU (completely built up units) bogies from China starting this year and manufacturing of 880 units locally in the next five years.
