PESHAWAR, Jan 13: The NWFP senior minister was caught off guard in the provincial assembly on Tuesday when he failed to come up with a response to a simple question relating to the location of Kurram Tangi Dam.

“Opposition leader Akram Khan Durrani has planted this question,” said Senior Minister Bashir Bilour and the entire house burst into laughter.

Through a supplementary question, an opposition lawmaker, Nighat Yasmeen Orakzai of PML-Q sought attention of the chair saying that first Mr Bilour should be asked about the location of Kurram Tangi Dam.

Perhaps, it was a simple IQ test for Mr Bilour, who is one of the most senior lawmakers in the sitting assembly and had also served as minister for irrigation, works and services in the previous governments. But, he had to bite the dust.

A member suggested that speaker should arrange classes for the lawmakers particularly for ministers to understand geography of the province and the region.

Being stalwart of Awami National Party, Mr Bilour must know at least about the geography of the region. A major dilemma of ANP is that its leadership and ministers have restricted themselves to Peshawar valley, including Charsadda, Mardan and some parts of Malakand region.

The nationalist leadership has yet to reach out to important regions of the province like Hazara, southern districts, Kohistan and tribal regions despite a political vacuum. And, this fact is revealed in the response of the senior minister.

During the question-answer session in the house on Tuesday, Dr Khalid Raza Zakori drew the chair’s attention towards suspension of work on the Kurram Tangi Dam. He said that despite allocation of funds and awarding contract, work on this vital project had been suspended.

The MPA said the project could irrigate thousands of acres of barren lands and generate electricity as the country needed both at this critical moment. He said that provincial government should ask centre to resume work on the vital project.

He was of the view that work on the project could be resumed if government provided only 60 guards. He offered that local people could voluntarily provide security to the project.

The project site situated in North Waziristan tribal region, according to the Wapda estimates would make 360,500 acres of barren land cultivable besides producing 75 megawatt electricity. The project costs Rs17.2 billion and the contract was awarded to Frontier Works Organisation, a subsidiary of the army. It could irrigate lands in Karak, Bannu, Laki Marwat districts, Frontier Region Bannu and parts of North Waziristan.

The FWO has refused to continue construction work on the project since militancy plagued the tribal region. The federal government has allocated Rs500 million for the project under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for the current financial year. The government said in its reply that works on the project could be resumed when security situation improved in the region.

Like Kurram Tangi Dam, various big and small hydel projects in NWFP including Gomal Zam and Munda Dam which could generate thousands megawatts of electricity and irrigate millions of acres barren lands are facing the same fate.

Work on these multibillion rupees foreign-funded projects has been suspended because of the insecurity. Foreign investors and engineers had left the sites and projects owing to fragile security environment in the province and Fata.