KP hydropower projects face delay due to lack of funds

Several Important hydropower project of  Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Power and Energy department face delay due to lack of funding.

The power projects are part of the current annual development program. The KP government had allocated Rs15.17 billion for various power projects of which only Rs4.332 billion could be used so far. Ongoing power and energy projects will be funded by the Asian Development Bank and the Hydraulic Development Fund but the pace of work is too slow due unavailability of funds.

According to the finance department documents, the Energy and Power department has been able to utilise all the funds released for the project of solarization of mosques across the province, while for other major projects including the Rs5 billion Balakot Hydropower project, the finance department has not released any funds. For this project 80 per cent of funds will be provided by Asian Development Bank while 20 per cent would be provided from hydraulic development funds. According to documents, out of the allocated Rs911 million for 88 megawatt project in Gabral and Rs255 million for Madin Hydro project, not even a single penny has been released so far.

Thus, Rs455 million were allocated for planning management support for the development of energy sector and institutional strengthening with the assistance of the World Bank but the allocated funds are yet to be released.

Similarly, so far no funds has been released for the Rs400 million worth Institute of Petroleum Technology in Karak district.

According to sources in the finance department, funds were delayed as the federal government has failed to provide the net hydel profit to the province.

Due to non-receipt of net profit of electricity from the federation, not only the projects started to increase power generation have been delayed while other development projects are also facing shortage of funds. Despite the PTI government in the center and in the province, in the past three years, the federal government has not been able to pay the net profit of Rs500 billion to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The chances of such funding has further decreased after the change of government in the center.

According to Finance department documents, the Energy and Power Department has also included more than twenty such projects in its annual development program.