THE Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is initiating civil work on construction of three small hydropower projects at an estimated cost of over Rs12 billion. Cumulatively, they will generate 56.2 megawatts of electricity within three years.

In case of two projects Machai Hydro Power Project (3.5 MW) and Ranolia Hydro Power Project (17MW) — contractors have been issued work orders.

Execution of third project Daral Khwar Hydro Power Project, Swat, (36.6 MW) — will take a few months more, Bahadur Shah, Managing Director, Sarhad Hydel Development Organisation (SHYDO) tells Dawn.

Powerhouse with a capacity of 3.5MW will be located on main Machai Canal, nearly 40 km by road from Mardan town in Alo village.

Likewise, Ranolia run-of-river hydropower project with generating capacity of 11.5MW is located in Kohistan district and to be fed through Ranolia Khwar. RKHP is 150 km north of Abbottabad.

Daral Khwar hydropower run-of river project (35 MW) is located in Upper Swat nearly 60 km north of Saidu Sharif. The project is designed to divert the waters of the Daral Khwar, a side tributary of the main Swat River, in the area of Arin Village. Daral Khwar joins the Swat River at the town of Bahrain.

The SHYDO, a semi-autonomous body, is the implementing agency for these small scale run-of-river projects. Finances have been arranged from the Asian Development Bank under its Renewable Energy Development Project, which envisages setting up of 10 small hydro power stations across the country.

The province's potential of generating cheap hydro power ranges between 30,000 to 35,000MW.

While the MMA government built 81MW Malakand III hydropower station, not a single project could be initiated so far under current KP administration.

Set up in 1986-87, the SHYDO has been able to construct four powerhouses, which generate just 100MW. The SHYDO blames lack of resources and federal ban on provincial government on construction of hydro powerhouses above 50MW.

“It takes lots of resources and at least five years to construct a powerhouse, whether big or small. The money was not there for feasibility study,” explains an official at SHYDO.

The incumbent government has approved a 15-year action plan to develop the hydro sector by initiating feasibility studies and executing projects for which feasibilities had already been done or are near completion.

All the money generated from the net hydro profit from Wapda will be utilised for the construction of new hydro projects.

However, the official acknowledges that last year when the first installment of Rs10 billion of hydro profit landed in the provincial kitty, the SHYDO did not have any ready-to-implement project. This money was invested in treasury bills just to earn profit.

Numan Wazir, a Peshawar-based industrialist, recalls the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's first-ever investment conference held in 2005, saying “the SHYDO did not have a single project at the time that could have been showcased for the potential investors.”

“I don't know what the SHYDO had been doing during all these years. Investors are required to carry out their own feasibilities because the SHYDO data do not serve the purpose. The SHYDO's so-called feasibility studies even did not give the basic details about the hydrology, he laments. “SHYDO has been a failure,” remarks Wazir.

Referring to the restrictions on construction of hydro powerhouse over 50MW, Senator Haji Muhammad Adeel said it was not a constitutional bar rather an illegal decision of the Wapda and could have been challenged at any time.

“It was nothing but an excuse to justify inaction on the part of SHYDO,” Senator Adeel, who was a member of provincial government team that made the federal government agree to pay the province arrears on account of net hydro profit.

“What best a political leadership can do is making resources available and we did it and now it is the responsibility of the public sector institution to ensure its just utilisation,” opines Senator Adeel.

According to Wazir, the feasibility studies of the three hydropower projects were prepared actually way back in 1990s under a donor-funded project.

Successive governments, in his views, did talk about the hydropower generation potential as a comparative advantage, but practically, did nothing.

Cheap electricity generated through hydropower stations can turn the provincial economy around, if it is provided to the local industries or supplied to the domestic consumers by using the Wapda transmission lines on wheel charge basis, as specified in the NEPRA Act saying “this is not happening yet.”