RAWALPINDI: The big plan to bring water to Rawalpindi from where the Neelum Jhelum and Murree rivers meet in Azad Kashmir has been shelved because the expected costs have gone up a lot.
The project was accepted in 2005, when Chaudhary Pervaiz Elahi was Punjab’s chief minister. It was first worth Rs2.55 billion. But after many delays and changes, the projected cost has gone through the roof, reaching over 12 billion rupees. This made the government give up on the project.
The project’s goal was to connect the Neelum Jhelum river to the Rawal Dam filter plant so that both Rawalpindi and Islamabad could get water. The project was also getting money from the Asian Development Bank. But when the government changed in 2008, work had to stop. Later, in 2012, the expected cost went up even more, to Rs 5 billion. The rising costs have made the project impossible to carry out, despite attempts to bring it back to life.
Sources in the District Coordination Committee Rawalpindi say that the case will now be sent to the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) so that they can ask the federal government for more money. The Capital Development Authority (CDA), the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA), and the Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) will all help with the project if it gets cleared. The project has been stopped for now, though, so people in Rawalpindi and Islamabad no longer have a reliable source of water.
