Dams surcharge likely to be slapped on electricity bills

ISLAMABAD: After refusal of all major multilateral lenders including the World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the dams committee is all set to recommend for relying on commercial foreign loans, launching of bonds and slapping dams surcharges on consumers through electricity bills for generating funds for construction cost of Diamer-Basha dam.

The cost of Diamer Basha dam has already escalated to Rs1594 billion. “We are considering out of box solutions as such mammoth dams cannot be constructed only relying on our traditional financing,” said one top official and added that there was need to slash down the Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) from hundreds of projects to only 50 to 100 projects.