EU team visits various projects in Chitral

CHITRAL: A four-member team of the European Union-funded PEACE and Community-Driven Local Development (CDLD) projects in various districts of Malakand Division including Chitral.

The team comprised of Katrina Altari, first secretary, Mark Leszczynski, Imran Ashraf and Riaz Nayyar from the EU. The team members visited the protective work, wells and roads built through the budgetary support given to the government under the EU’s community-driven policies in Drosh, Broze and Chumorkhon, respectively.

In Bamboret, the visitors saw the Sarujalik hydel power station, which supplies 200 kilowatts of electricity to the Kalash valley. Several hundred households and several hotels get electricity from the powerhouse, constructed by Sarhad Rural Support Programme (SRSP) after the 2010 floods with assistance from Australian Aid.

The irrigation channel for water was expanded and rebuilt with assistance from UNDP and UNHCR after the two devastating floods in the valley. The EU supported the expansion of the transmission lines in the valley to enable a large part of the valley to benefit from the project.

The communities at the meeting informed the visitors about the impact the project on their lives. They said that the demand for electricity had multiplied many times with the expansion in tourism in the valley and identified it as an important goal for the communities.

The members said that improvement in the technologies could also improve electricity production in winters. At Ayun, the visitors saw the 600 kilowatts hydro project that the EU had funded. The project has been supplying over 1,300 households with electricity for the last three years. The powerhouse met the needs of half of Ayun’s population while a private entrepreneur was meeting the remaining one.

On the second day of the visit, the EU visitors went to the scenic but flood-devastated Golen valley. They visited the 2-megawat powerhouse established with the SRSP assistance. The powerhouse has been supplying 5 million units of electricity to the Pesco and Pedo grids for the last 11 months after its inauguration. Recently, the federal secretary power has asked for an audit of Pesco accounts to determine how much power was received from this unit into the local grid because no payments have been made to SRSP for the use of this electricity.

With the commissioning of the 108 megawatts government-run project, the Chitral town has been connected to the national grid. The electricity from the powerhouse is now being transmitted to the inhabitants of Golen in five villages, thus making up for the government policy of not supplying electricity to the local areas where the electricity is produced. The power unit has been connected to a mini steel factory as part of SRSP’s social enterprise programme. This will enable the project to fund the needs of local communities after meeting its financial and technical needs. The SRSP has also contributed Rs2.9 million recently from its resources to relay the power lines destroyed by the floods in the valley. This has helped overcome a major problem the local communities were facing as the supply of electricity has begun. The delegation was also informed that the powerhouse at Mastuj was grossly underutilised although it had supplied electricity to the town for the last two years and repayments had also not been up to the expectations. The powerhouse at Booni is still awaited, either being linked up with the Pedo system in Booni or the laying of electric lines to the centre of the town to utilise the electricity. Two power stations in Rech, one at Nisur in Torkhow and those in Rambur and Oveer were also supplying electricity. Power stations in Khot still need to address the issue of social sustainability in one case and land sliding in another. The EU team also met the officials of the district administration to discuss the progress on the CDLD project where the distribution of funds on the initiated project has been low. The team expressed concern over the quality of the projects and stressed the need for improving engineering supervision.