CDWP to clear 4 projects worth Rs241bn today

The Central Development Working Party (CDWP) is expected to take up four development projects involving an estimated cost of Rs241 billion including two much-delayed major water sector projects of over Rs177bn and a Rs43bn controversial road project in Balochistan. To be presided over by the deputy chairman Planning Commission on Tuesday, the meeting of the CDWP will also take up a Rs43bn road project in Balochistan despite strong opposition from the Planning Commission on technical, financial and legal grounds and unwillingness of the management of Reko Diq Copper-Gold Project, on whose name the project is being pushed, to utilise it in the short or medium term. Informed sources said the CDWP had not cleared the Rs22.8bn worth of automation of 25 sites of the Indus River Basin for water discharge monitoring for violation of its earlier directions, increasing in number of sites from seven already approved by the CDWP to 25 without confidence building with the provinces and increasing the cost from Rs2.5bn to Rs22.84bn.