ISLAMABAD – Prime Minister Imran Khan’s recent speech calling theexpatriate Pakistanis to donate for construction of Diamer Bhasha andMohmand dams have triggered a lively debate among the Pakistanis includingthose living abroad on social media showing their excitement to generouslycontribute in the development of the dams.
The expatriate Pakistanis seem to be more eager than ever to donate to thefund after receiving a call from the PM whom they consider an honest anddedicated man.
The social media users are also encouraging others to donate to the fund byposting on their social media walls, the proofs of their donations made forthe fund.
A representative of Pakistani community from Qatar, Malik Qaiser Awan, whois working as the coordinator in IPF group of companies Qatar announcedthrough a video message on social media to immediately transfer US$100,000to Prime Minister and Chief Justice of Pakistan Fund for Diamer Bhasha andMohmand dams on behalf of Pakistani community living in Qatar.
“We are a group of some friends from Pakistanis living in Qatar and we havedecided to send at least $1million and will continue sending the money until the target hascompleted,” he said adding Imran Khan was a trustworthy as he delivered bysuccessfully managing cancer hospitals and university in the country.
Yesterday $2.9 million dollars were contributed in a private TV Channelspecial transmission.
Zafar Iqbal, a mechanical engineer in Masqat, Oman told this scribe that heamong all his other Pakistanis living in Masqat were very passionate tomake their contribution to the fund.
He said the prime minister was himself a devoted and loyal person andpeople trust him that he would not let the donated money waste away.
He alleged that in the past the corrupt rulers ate up the donated moneycollected for “Qarz utaro mulk sanwaro” scheme.
The enthusiasm is not being shown by the well-off people only but thelow-income people living abroad are also quite passionate in this regard asa video go viral on social media of a taxi driver living in United ArabEmirate (UAE) who said that he would also, donate around $50 to the fundaccording to his affordability.
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Before the appeal made by the PM, expatriate Pakistanis have shown alukewarm response to the fund as only Rs 21.5 million was contributed bythem out of the total received the amount of Rs 1.94 billion, according todata updated by State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on September 6, 2018.
The SBP has also announced through a circular that all issuing andacquiring banks in Pakistan will not charge any service fee includinginterchange fee, merchant discount rate, transaction fee etc on alltransactions from abroad that will be made through payment cards (debit,credit or prepaid cards).
Meanwhile, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Senator Shibli Faraz whiletalking to a news channel hoped that the fund would receive thecontribution from the Pakistanis living abroad, of around one to twobillion dollars in next 6 months.
According to experts, if the government managed to accumulate the fund ofaround Rs 400-500 billion, work on Diamer Bhasha dam could be started bymid of next year.
Under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP), 2018-19, the federalgovernment has already allocated Rs 23.68 billion for the dam, while totalPSDP share for the project has been fixed at Rs 232 billion which would bedisbursed in next few years during the course of construction of the dam.
Back in April 2018, the Executive Committee of National Economic Council(ECNEC) had approved the construction of Diamer Bhasha dam at an initialestimated cost of Rs 474 billion.
However, the total cumulative cost of the dam would be at least Rs 1400billion once power generation facilities are accounted for.
The gigantic project will have 6.4 million acre-feet live water storagecapacity with the installed power capacity of 4,500MW. After completion,the project would increase national water storage capacity of up to 45 daysand would enhance lifespan on downstream reservoirs including Tarbela Dam.
