Wapda chief stresses early completion of Dasu project

MANSEHRA: Wapda Chairman Lt-Gen (r) Muzzamal Hussain has asked construction companies and district administration to ensure that 4,300-megawatt Dasu hydropower project is completed before the schedule of the year 2025.

“The district administration should ensure that 10,000 acres of land being acquired for this mega energy project could be handed over to companies working on it and latter should complete this dam before the scheduled time in the larger public interest,” he told participants of a meeting attended by the deputy commissioner and executives of Chinese working on that dam in Dasu on Monday.

The Dasu hydropower project general manager, Anwarul Haq, and Upper Kohistan Deputy Commissioner Arif Khan Yousafzai were also in attendance. The Wapda chairman said the government had enhanced the land price and now there was no hurdle to the smooth execution of the World Bank-funded energy project.

“The World Bank has guaranteed $ 573 million for this mega energy project and Prime Minister Imran Khan in his meeting with companies and Wapda officers at Islamabad in January, this year, had directed for early completion of this energy project. You should come up with a comprehensive strategy to achieve the task,” he said added.

The Wapda chief said the government was committed to early completion of the mega project to overcome the current energy shortfall and put the country on way to prosperity and development.

He met landowners and sought their cooperation in the early completion of the land acquisition process. “We have raised land prices in accordance with your demand and now it is also your national responsibility to extend your cooperation to the district administration and Wapda for early completion of the land acquisition process,” he said. The Wapda chief said the government would construction health, education and roads infrastructures in Kohistan in consultation with locals.

“We would develop road, health and educational infrastructure here with the consent of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government as these public welfare schemes would ultimately be handed over to it for future execution,” he said.