Daily Times

Sir: An international court of arbitration in Hague has ruled in favour of India on the construction of the Kishanganga hydroelectric project. It has upheld India’s right to divert water from the Kishenganga (Neelum) river into the Bona Madmati Nallah — Wullar Lake. This will impact the water flows in Pakistan’s Neelum river, affecting the capacity of Rs 278 billion Neelum-Jhelum hydropower project. Therefore, Pakistan will face a yearly loss of $ 145 million.

The main reason for this loss of pride and money is our failure to complete this mega project in 2008 due to significant delays caused by funding issues, poor planning, international conspiracy and lack of national will to complete it before India’s Kishenganga hydroelectric project. Regrettably, previous governments never allocated funds in budget and totally depended on donors’ money. Unfortunately, our leaders’ own interests were more important than the construction of this national project. What a shame, our leaders managed to spend Rs 30-47 billion rupees in their constituencies but failed to arrange funds for this project. As a result the work almost came to halt in early 2012 due to non-payment to Chinese companies by government of Pakistan. Consequently, Chinese companies also failed to pay Pakistani sub-contractors and suppliers for the last two and half years. This has created a financial dilemma for Pakistani suppliers/ sub-contractors who have obtained funds from banks. Banks have obtained decrees from banking courts to auction mortgaged properties due to non-payments.

This project has already suffered a big blow due to non-issuance of funds. Moreover, this project will start producing cheap electricity by December 2015 within the tenure of this government. Therefore, I appeal to the prime minister and the minister of finance to release funds on war footing for timely construction of this project.

MM Hussain

Lahore