Tarbela cost jumps 282% to Rs316b

The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC), headed by Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar, has approved 16 projects costing Rs1.15 trillion, according to The Express Tribune. Several of the schemes had come before the committee more than once after facing significant cost escalation. The Tarbela fifth extension scheme was cleared at Rs316 billion, a rise of 282 per cent from its original Rs82 billion cost.

The package includes the politically sensitive Lahore-Sahiwal-Bahawalnagar motorway, which the Pakistan Peoples Party opposes, approved at Rs407 billion. Its first section runs 18.5 km between Lahore Ring Road and Raja Jang Interchange, and was cleared at Rs49 billion with federal funding. The original 295 km alignment will be kept, and for the remaining sections the NHA has been asked to explore public-private partnership financing where viable and alternate funding where not.

Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal raised concerns about how the Tarbela project was managed, its transparency and its oversight, and said the professional capability of staff appeared questionable. An inquiry into the breach of a downstream cofferdam at the T5 project attributed the collapse to a design change, weak supervision and delayed administrative action, rather than to floods. The Finance Ministry had asked for justification of the 282 per cent escalation and for Wapda's repayment mechanism, yet the ECNEC still cleared the scheme.