The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Energy Development Organisation on Wednesday released documents which contradicted Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan’s claim of having constructed over 350 small dams in the province to put an end to power outages.
During a rally held in KhwazaKhela in 2014, Khan claimed, “We have initiated a plan to construct 350 small dams in KP during our tenure.”
The KP government had pledged to construct 356 dams in the province according to an 18-month plan. In contrast, the KP energy report showed that the provincial government had failed to complete the project before this year’s general elections. Construction activities were ongoing on 114 dams and the authorities concerned have not yet started work on 40 proposed dams.
According to sources, the PTI government could not show any documentary evidence to support its claims. They further said that even if all 356 dams were constructed, they would only be able to produce 35 megawatts of electricity to the national grid since a majority of these dams could only produce 5KV to 50KV electricity.
It is important to mention here that a majority of these projects were initiated without conducted mandatory geological surveys of the area where the dams were being constructed.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Financial Officer Saeed Akhtar Chughtai, while talking to a private news channel, said, “Electricity produced from these dams would cost Rs 4.5 per unit tariff.” The PTI chief, on the other hand, had claimed that the provincial government would provide electricity to consumers on Rs 2 per unit.
