THE country’s perennial water shortages notwithstanding, there is little evidence of a concerted push by the state towards speeding up projects that could contain the crisis. On Friday, a Senate Standing Committee on Water and Power said that the World Bank would rather fund the Dasu power project in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa than the Diamer-Bhasha dam in Gilgit-Baltistan on account of India’s objections rooted in Gilgit-Baltistan’s territorial status. This reported preference appeared acceptable to the presiding…
Posts published in “Day: August 13, 2012”
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has informally announced that it is backing off from its commitment to finance the Bhasha Dam and there is now news that the Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower project is also in deep financial trouble. This is a serious blow to our efforts to resolve the ongoing power crisis that has afflicted the country and crippled the economy for most of the life of this government. Considering the Bhasha project is now four…
By Shabbir Mir in The Express Tribune, Aug 13 GILGIT: A year after the Hunza riots, a regional body has demanded that results of the judicial inquiry into the incident be made public and that the responsible people be punished in light of the report. The decision was made during a meeting of members of the regional body, Hunza Qaumi Markah, held to mark the first anniversary of the riots, in which a man and…
GILGIT: Days after electricity was restored in Hunza following a week-long outage, the valley experienced a 30-hour-long outage that ended on Sunday. Locals said they have been outraged by the duration of the outages, which typically exceeds 21 hours a day. Amjad Hussain, a local, said the prolonged outages have wreaked havoc for all businesses and social activities in the valley. He said that patients are suffering as most of the hospitals do not have…
By Zafar Bhutta in The Express Tribune, Aug 12 ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has objected to India’s move to fill the controversial Nimoo Bazgo Dam built in Indian-held Kashmir. The upstream hydroelectric plant with a capacity of 45 megawatts (MW) has been built near the Alchi village in Leh district to provide electricity to the Indian army deployed in Kargil. The decision to fill the dam up to capacity will inhibit Pakistan’s water inflow from the River…
The Express Tribune, Aug 13 MIRPUR: Political leaders and environmentalists have expressed concern over the drying up of water springs as a result of boring of two tunnels for a power project in Neelum-Jhelum valley. “At least 600 water springs have vanished as a result of boring of the tunnels,” said Leader of the Opposition in Azad Kashmir (AJK) Legislative Assembly, Farooq Haider Khan, while talking to media persons at an Iftar dinner recently. The…
GILGIT, Aug 12: Pakistan People’s Party has dissolved all its organisations throughout the Gilgit-Baltistan region with the purpose to reorganise the party. Sources told Dawn on condition of anonymity that the dissolution of the cabinets came as internal disputes among the office-bearers were on the rise. The sources said the matter was brought to the notice of high command which took the step and asked the party workers to get ready for reorganisation purely on…