ISLAMABAD: National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee on Water Resources, Thursday, recommended that ministry of Water Resources should avoid initiating new projects before the completion of ongoing projects to ensure the proper utilisation of funds.
The NA Standing Committee on Water Resources met here in the Committee Room of Federal Flood Commission, under the chairmanship of MNA Khalid Hussain Magsi to discuss the performance of Water Resources Ministry and its attached departments.
The Committee highly acknowledged the viability of Neelum Jhelum Hydel power project and 4th extension project of Terbella and urged upon the need for their early completion in order to meet the requirement of Electricity in Pakistan.
The Committee recommended that ministry may ensure the completion of all projects within given time frame as it had been observed that unnecessary delays escalated the cost of the projects which caused huge losses to the exchequer. The Committee further recommended that ministry may avoid initiating new projects before the completion of ongoing projects to ensure the proper utilisation of funds.
The Committee expressed concern that the mandate of some departments like National Transmission and Dispatched Company (NTDC) had been assigned to M/o Energy after the change in nomenclature of the ministries concerned which could affect their overall performance as they mainly interlink with M/o Water Resources.
Earlier, Water Resources Minister, WAPDA chairman and secretary briefly apprised the Committee about the efforts made by them to complete the ongoing projects within given time frame and problems faced by them in this regard.
MNAs, Ch Muhammad Tufail, Lt Col (retd) Ghulam Rasul Sahi, Pir Aslam Bodla, Rao Muhammad Ajmal, Abdul Sattar Bachani, Nawab Muhammad Yousuf Talpur, Salim Rehman, Syed Waseem Hussain, Moulana Gohar Shah and Abdul Qahar Khan Wadan attended the meeting, besides officials of the ministry.
