Neelum-Jhelum project CEO resigns

ISLAMABAD: In a mammoth setback to the country’s most strategic Rs404 billion Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project (NJHPC), the Chief Executive Officer of the NJHPC Lt General (retd) Zubair Muhammad on Friday tendered his resignation which has been accepted by the newly-appointed Wapda Chairman Lt General (retd) Muzammil Hussain, top officials privy to the development told The News.

The resignation of Zubair came at a time when the project got completed by 85 percent without the financial closure. Zubair joined the project as CEO of Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Company on September 2010 and since then he was given five extensions acknowledging the fact that he kept on moving the construction work with pace at the project site without the financial closure.

When he joined the project way back on September 2010, the land acquisition process for the project was underway meaning by that the project has now been built from scratch to 85 percent. More importantly, a huge amount of Rs268 billion has been spent on the project showing the pace of the project has gained momentum.

“The time of resignation is indeed very critical as the stiff timelines for making the project operational had been decided by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif during his visit on August 22 to Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project site.”

Under the new timelines approved by the premier, the first turbine of the project of 242.25MW of electricity is to come on stream on July 2017 and 100 percent streamlining of the project is to be materialised by December 2017.

The Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project will inject 969MW into the system by December 2017 and with the resignation of Zubair, the pace of construction work of the project is feared to slow down as the new CEO will take time to understand the various aspects of the project, which is highly complex in nature. This is the first-ever project which is being termed as a wonder of Pakistan as its 10 percent part is on surface and 90 percent part is beneath the ground, consisting 51.3 kilometers long tunnels. Transformer hall and power house with four turbines are also underground making the project unique of its kind.

When contacted, General (retd) Zubair Mohammad confirmed that he had resigned. He said that his tenure was to get completed by September 22 this year. “Because of the recent death of my son at age 39, I was not in a position to continue as CEO of the project,” Zubair said.

However, the sources privy to the development said that Zubair was not comfortable with the higher authorities soon after the resignation of Zafar Mehmood as Wapda chairman. Zafar Mehmood had earlier resigned on August 22.