Suki Kinari hydropower project: Landowners halt work on dam in Rajwal area

MANSEHRA: The landowners, whose land was acquired for 840 megawatt Suki Kinari hydropower project, have forcibly stopped work on the dam in Rajwal area of Kaghan valley.

"We would never allow government to execute work on this dam until government pays market prices of our land acquired for dam and other incentives," Mian Ashraf, the chairman of Tahaffuz-i-Haqooq Balakot committee told reporters on Monday.

The landowners stopped machineries, excavators and other machinery to move ahead into their land and exchanged harsh words with company's high-ups, saying they would prefer to die but never allow them to start work there. "How we can allow engineers and workers to start work in Rajwal and other parts of Kaghan valley where government didn't even impose Section 4," the committee head said.

He said that landowners would gather at the Ayub Bridge in Balakot from Kaghan valley and other parts and block Mansehra-Naran-Jalkhad road to all sort of traffic on March 20. "We want market price for our land acquired for the dam. The government signed agreements with us but now it does not honour commitments," said Ashraf.

He said that Tahaffuz-i-Haqooq Balakot Committee had decided not to allow district administration to acquire land anywhere in the entire tehsil as it was not fixing appropriate prices of their lands.

The Suki Kinari hydropower project, which is being built on Kunhar River in Kaghan valley, is the pioneer project in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa being executed in the energy sector under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project.