PESHAWAR: One of the much-trumpeted programmes of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government were the 356 micro-hydro power projects that were launched by the provincial government in the mountainous regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
In a recent interview with media, Chief Minister Pervez Khattak claimed that 90 percent of the projects were completed. But a visit to the field by this correspondent and interviews with different stakeholders showed that either the chief minister was unaware of the problems in this project or he had been misled about facts.
Immediately after coming into power in 2013, the PTI government had stressed power generation as one of the main goals of the government.
In this connection, Rs6 billion programme for development of micro-hydropower projects was initiated in Chitral, Upper Dir, Swat, Kohistan, Shangla, Abbottabad, Mansehra and Torghar districts.
Seven organisations comprising civil society organisations, contractors and firms were hired to implement the programme in different districts.
Big launching ceremonies were organised, which were attended by PTI Chairman Imran Khan and Pervez Khattak in different districts to mark the initiation of the programme.
But it seems that afterwards, the stewards of the project lost interest in it.
From the word go, the programme was plagued with difficulties which a little bit of leadership and commitment would have easily resolved and it would have lived up to its flag bearer status for the government.
But petty issues have remained unresolved, while barely a month and a half remains for the end of tenure of this government.
The first of these difficulties was the lack of understanding within the PTI leadership about what the project was about.
Imran Khan referred a number of times to the 356 “dams” that they were building when actually these were powerhouses that tapped the flow of water and height to generate electricity on channels built from river using gravity pull factors.
The projects were to be built by the organisations and firms contracted to do so but once completed their running would be in the hand of the communities which contributed in a big way to their building by providing land and material for their construction.
Sadly, while the community ownership was supposed to be the distinguishing part of the project to ensure its sustainability, it has received scant attention.
Three years after the initiation of the project, there is no policy on how these projects, which consist of government assets, would be transferred to the communities who have built them and sacrificed their time and resources for their building.
It is surprising that while initiating the Rs6 billion project, this crucial issue that should have been the first to be addressed remains unresolved even after three years.
This is especially surprising because the government is spending billions of rupees of budgetary support funds under CDLD in the same area where this money and assets generated through it become community assets. In the absence of a policy, not a single project has been handed over to the communities.
While the KP government has not taken them over and hence they are incomplete on government records, the contracting organisations have found it impossible to prevent the communities from using them because these projects are mostly in locations where there is no electricity.
The absence of a policy to hand over the assets was the government’s prime responsibility in this project but no one seems to be bothered about it.
“Whose responsibility is it to formulate the policy?”
As a result of these lacunae, the contractors have been refused payments for these projects because they are incomplete while both the Pakhtunkhwa Energy Development Organisation (PEDO) website and the chief minister claim that 90 percent of these projects are complete.
Speaking to The News, community leaders in Swat, Buner and Upper Dir questioned that if these projects are complete, why the contractors are not being paid for it and if they are not complete, then why they are making tall claims on the media?.
“It’s sad to note that not a single project has been handed over to the communities so far and the government claim that 90 percent are complete is not the correct picture. If the present government, which initiated these projects, could not lay down a policy in its full term it is too much to expect that the next government would do anything about it,” said a community activist.
It’s clear that unless this issue is settled by the government before its term ends, this Rs6 billion will go down the drain as waste.
The PEDO has complicated this process further by putting up a new criterion of testing each unit for the electricity produced against its actual capacity before taking over the projects and handing them over to the communities.
This policy seems to be an afterthought to cover up the ownership issue because communities have been using these powerhouses for more than two years in some cases, which could result in some wear and tear and the contractors were penalised for no fault of theirs.
The contractors also complain that the project, which was to be initiated in September 2014, actually started in March 2015 because the PC-1 had to be revised.
Further delays took place because of withholding tax and sales tax issues that were raised by the government stopping work for eight months.
Another factor delaying the progress has been that the implementing organisations have faced huge cash flow problems because of unilateral deviations from the agreed payment schedule.
The partner organisations pay their contractors on the basis of work done while they get paid on the basis of milestones. The payment processes have been long and cumbersome, which is not the process adopted in projects and work is being done in communities because of the resentment it builds up.
Delay in solving these problems has resulted in the project’s lifetime being extended putting additional cost on the implementing organisations.
It’s sad that a programme that was considered the flagship programme of the PTI government faces these challenges while the government either out of ignorance or because of misinformation keeps presenting a different picture to the public.
The issues in the project are deep rooted and it seems that instead of providing people with electricity this will go to arbitration to resolve the issues that surround it.
These are simple issues which good leadership and commitment to serving the people would have easily resolved.
Efforts were made for seeking comments of the chief minister but his spokesman Shaukat Yousafzai neither answered phone calls nor replied to the text messages about this issue.
