LAHORE: In pursuance of the honorable Supreme Court’s remarkable judgment of July 4, 2018, for construction of two dams, the second meeting of the Implementation Committee of Diamer Basha and Mohmand Dams (ICBDMD)held at ICDBMD Secretariat on Friday.
According to WAPDA spokesman, the meeting, chaired by ICDBMD/WAPDA Chairman Lt Gen (R) Muzammil Hussain, attended by the Members of the Implementation Committee including Additional Secretary (Budget) Finance Division, Joint Secretary (Water), Ministry of Water Resources, Joint Secretary Prime Minister’s Office, Senior Chief (Water) Planning Division, Additional Chief Secretary (Development) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Senior Member Board of Revenue Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Co-opted Members including Additional Secretary (External Finance), Joint Secretary (EAD), Joint Secretary (Interior) and Secretary (Implementation and Coordination) Gilgit Baltistan were also present.
Addressing the meeting, ICDBMD Chairman said that the Committee is committed to accomplishing the task assigned to it by the honorable Supreme Court for early commencement and timely completion of Diamer Basha and Mohmand Dam Projects. He said the Committee had been zealously working to weigh various options for the purpose. The Chairman expressed satisfaction over the prompt response of the Sub-Committees, constituted during the first meeting of ICDBMD on July 12, for identifying the issues and coming up with the solutions.
Later, the Sub-Committees presented their reports in the meeting. The Sub-Committees for Land Acquisition and Resettlement briefed the meeting about the current status of the land acquisition and resettlement of both Diamer Basha and Mohmand Dams, the impediments in the way to completion of land acquisition and resettlement processes, the ways, and means for completion of land acquisition and resettlement with defined timelines.
The Sub-Committee for Procurement and Implementation apprised the meeting of their analysis regarding procurement strategies and processes, proposed measures for their timely completion by identifying the issues
and defining the redressal mechanism with timelines. The Sub-Committee for Projects’ Financing informed the meeting about the measures required to achieve financial close of Diamer Basha and Mohmand Dam Projects in time, the identified gaps in arranging the requisite financing and suggested timelines to ensure financial close with earliest possible dates.
The Sub-Committees for Security shared with the participants the security measures needed for timely completion of the projects. The Sub-Committee for Coordination briefed the meeting about the proposed mechanism to provide legal advice, logistic support, and ancillary services to the Implementation Committee.
The implementation Committee thoroughly reviewed the presentations of the Sub-Committees and made recommendations to finalize their reports.Chief Minister Gilgit Baltistan (GB), Hafiz Hafeez ur Rehman Friday said the construction of Diamer Basha dam was most important and basic need of the country. Addressing a press conference here at National Press Club, the Chief Minister said there was the need to resolve inter-provincial conflicts adding that the GB government requested the Chief Justice of Supreme Court to play his role to remove necessary and technical hurdles which were obstacles in the construction of the second phase of the dam. He said the General (R) Pervaiz Musharaf had laid the foundation of Diamer Basha dam in 2006 and later in 2010, the government made an agreement with affected persons of the dam in which all issues including land requisition had to be resolved but the federal government did not release funds and issues could not be resolved. He said in 2014 the former Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif took the matter seriously and issued directions to complete the construction of the first phase of the dam and the GB government had completed the 90 percent land requisition process in six months and paid Rs 52 billion to local owners of the land. He said that first time in the history, the GB government with the help of SUPARCO had completed the land requisition process of the dam and all details of the land requisition were available on the website

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