The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) has approved nine projects, worth over Rs361.5 billion, related to water reservoirs, health, hydro power and infrastructure.
Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Shaukat Tarin virtually chaired the ECNEC meeting on Wednesday.
Tarin, while discussing the projects, directed the Planning Commission to prioritise projects that are strategic in nature or can be completed in a shorter period of time to save the exchequer from cost overruns and unnecessary delays in the completion of projects.
The meeting approved the Gomal Zam Multipurpose Project (2nd Revised PC-I) at the total cost of Rs25,928 million. The forum also granted the ex-post facto approval of the expenditures and financial closure of the project by relaxing the direction/ decision of the earlier meeting of ECNEC on 28-8-2013. The project is located on the Gomal River in South Waziristan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The main objective of the project is to harness flood water and provide assured irrigation water supply of 848 cusecs to irrigate 191,139 acres of land including 28,053 acres additional land which falls under the Waran Canal System and to generate 17.4 MW of electricity.
The ECNEC also approved the Covid-19 response and other natural calamities control programme (Sindh component) at the total cost of Rs20,822.046 million without any foreign exchange component. The project will be completed on equally shared financing basis by the government of Sindh and the federal government through PSDP. It is expected to be completed by the end of the year 2023. The ECNEC also gave approval to the 30 MW hydro power project Ghowari (2nd revised) at the total cost of Rs16,399.760 million. The project is located in district Ghanche of Gilgit-Baltistan. The project is expected to be completed in 4 years. The 20 MW hydro power project Hazel, Gilgit, was also approved by ECNEC at the revised PC-I cost of Rs12,921.662 million.
