by Ahmad Fraz Khan in DAWN, OCT 2
LAHORE, Oct 1: The Ministry of Water and Power, the Planning Commission and the Ministry of Finance have raised objections to the way the Neelum-Jhelum hydropower project has been implemented and to its cost which has swollen by 380 per cent over the past few years.
In a joint communiqué to Wapda, they noted that on the basis of overall revised cost of the project after second revision, the cost per MW comes to about $3.86 million per megawatt which is on a very high side compared to other projects under implementation (even in the private sector).
The joint communiqué said: “The cost of second revised PC-I has been enhanced from Rs84.5 billion to Rs321.331 billion due to escalation, contractor, bid change in design due to the 2005 earthquake, design changes in the main tunnel and deployment of tunnel boring machine (TBM).”
The above-mentioned reasons for enhancing the cost of the revised PC-I by up to 380 per cent do not seem enough and a detailed justification in this respect needs to be provided.
It is important to mention that seismic parameters after the earthquake of Oct 8, 2005 are one of the reasons for the second revision. “It may be clarified why the contract was awarded to a Chinese consortium on Dec 19, 2007 before incorporating the same in the design.
“The contract of Neelum-Jhelum Project was processed in 2006 (post-earthquake of October 2005). Therefore, the increase in cost against revision in design at this stage on account of above said earthquake has question mark as such revision should have been completed immediately after the earthquake before initiating the competitive bidding process for the project.”
About the tunnel boring machine, it said that in (revised) PC-I, provision of Rs19,500 million had been made for the machine.
There are certain heads which are main part of the cost but have not been accounted for while calculating project tariff of Rs7.89 per KWh. www.dawn.com
Be First to Comment