ISLAMABAD: The steering committee to oversee the CPEC projects related to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) has directed the WAPDA to complete the feasibility of Chashma Right Bank Canal Project (CRBC) project within nine months.

The committee met with Federal Minister for Defense Pervez Khattak in the chair at the Parliament House on Monday.

The constitution of the steering committee was approved by National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser to review the progress of the CPEC-related projects in the KP.

The committee members expressed their strong resentment over absence of the secretary planning and the secretary water resources.

Defense Minister and committee chairman Pervez Khattak asked relevant officers to the ministers to immediately call the secretaries to ensure their presence in the meeting.

The planning official told the committee that the secretary planning was ill and he would attend the meeting via video link.

The chairman has directed the WAPDA to complete the feasibility of Chasmha Right Bank Canal Project (CRBC) within nine months as that project was vital for agricultural development of the KP province.

He said project would be directly beneficial for irrigating 260,000 acres of barren land in the KP, and that project should be treated as a special project.

He said, while chairing the first meeting of the steering committee that the project had already been delayed considerably and no delay in that regard would be tolerated.

He said Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Arbab Shahzad said official bottlenecks would not be tolerated in this case as this project already had taken a lot of time to get its feasibility approved.

He also sought monthly progress report about timeline of the projects.

Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan Ali Amin Gandapur also remarked that the project would be treated as a special project and feasibility of this project be prepared at the earliest, so the project be started next year.

The meeting was attended by Federal Minister Ali Amin Gandapur, chairman CPEC standing committee Shair Ali Arbab, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Arbab Shazad Minister for Finance KP Taimur Saleem Jhagra, MNA Yaqoob Sheikh, Additional Chief Secretary KP, and other senior officers of the federal and provincial departments, WAPDA, Irrigation, and Finance, also attended the meeting.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020