Report by Engineering Post
Cost of the 2160 MW DASU Hydropower Project, located in district Upper Kohistan Khyber Pakhtunkhwa over river Indus, has shot up as much as 240 percent to Rs 1.74 trillion while its construction work was still in progress..
The increased cost of the project was considered and approved by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) in its recent meeting in Islamabad.
With the project cost going up and up, the project per unit cost has also risen thus impacting economic feasibility.
The substantial increase in the Energy sector project has been attributed by the executing agency WAPDA to the factors like delays in the land acquisition, increased security needs and requirements in the backdrop of terrorist attacks on the Chinese engineers working on the project and stakeholders mismanagement. No details were immediately available regarding this reported factor of stakeholders mismanagement.
According to the information available from the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) of the Federal Government, Dasu Hydropower Project Stage-1 (2160 MW) was last approved by the ECNEC in March 2014 for its implementation at an estimated cost of Rs 10980.200 million including foreign aid of Rs 218547.509 million against which an expenditure of Rs 169111.072 million had been reported by the project executors till end June 2024.
Incidentally, consideration and approval of the substantially increased cost of the project by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council coincided with the visit of WAPDA Chairman to the project site during which he was briefed about the progress about ongoing works on different sites of the project.
