Chashma Right Bank Canal Project delay: KP CM writes letter to PM Shehbaz

The Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has written a letter to the Prime Minister expressing concern over delays in the Chashma Right Bank Canal (CRBC) project.

According to Dawn News, in the letter addressed to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, KP Chief Minister Sohail Afridi stated that the failure to start the Chashma Right Bank Canal project even after 35 years is creating distrust.

He wrote that among the projects of all four provinces, only the CRBC canal has seen no progress, whereas irrigation projects of other provinces have been completed under the 1991 Water Apportionment Accord.

The chief minister further stated that the Council of Common Interests (CCI) had set the financing formula as 65 per cent federal government and 35 per cent provincial government. However, the federal government has intentionally put KP’s project on hold. Although ECNEC approved the Rs189 billion project in 2022, it has still not started.

Sohail Afridi said that WAPDA has been continuously delaying the procurement and qualification process. The provincial government has released Rs2 billion for land acquisition and allocated another Rs5 billion, yet WAPDA’s land acquisition remains slow.

He wrote that the federal government’s allocation of only Rs100 million reflects a non-serious attitude. The CRBC project is crucial for terrorism-affected areas and can generate economic benefits worth Rs38 billion.

Afridi added that the Chashma Right Bank Canal will irrigate over 280,000 acres of land, and further delay in the project will lead to a crisis of public trust.