HYDERABAD, Feb 26 A delay of about eight months, from July 8 to Feb 9, in release of funds for the Right Bank Outfall Drain-II (RBOD-II) mega project is likely to push back its completion to 2011 instead of expected 2010, according to officials close to the project.

The multi-billion rupees project is meant to take saline water that is being released into Manchhar Lake through Main Nara Valley (MNV) drain as a temporary measure - the main cause of lake's destruction. It is scheduled to be completed by December 2009. Earlier, it was scheduled to be end by Jan 1, 2006.

The sources said that physical progress on the project had been 52 per cent and only around 42 per cent of funds had been released so far by the federal government.

They claimed that the project's management had received around Rs12.2 billion of the total estimated cost of Rs29.12 billion. “The allocation in provincial budget for fiscal year 2008-09 is Rs4,000 million that we believe should have been (released) by now before the year ends on June 30,” said an official source.

He claimed that the provincial government had released only Rs600 million. “We have been told that the remaining Rs3,400 million out of the allocated Rs4,000 million will be released before closure of fiscal year,” he said.

An official claimed that 70 per cent of excavation work had been completed while other sources put the work at 40 per cent work. Contractors were not taking interest in the work because their liabilities needed to be cleared first, he said.

The drain, which was earlier supposed to carry effluent of only upper Sindh and Punjab to the sea, has been expanded and redesigned to carry saline and wastewater of Balochistan province.

It will now carry around 3,500 cusec to the sea against its earlier capacity of 2,271 cusec.

Environmentalists and public representatives including those in the government have expressed reservations over the RBOD-II, which will be connected with MNV drain to take water directly to sea without having to release it first into the lake.

Environmental experts believe that the project's environmental impact assessment report is too weak because it fails to address some key questions.

RBOD project director Rafiq Memon said that they had briefed the irrigation minister on the project after he expressed his reservations. “I have a feeling he was satisfied but still only he can give a final word on the project,” he said.

Ms Marvi Memon, member of National Assembly's standing committee on environment, had also expressed reservations over the RBOD-II and said that its EIA was carried out by a firm that had already been blacklisted by Wapda for flaws in LBOD's design. She called for review and re-evaluation of the project.