ISLAMABAD: The Executive Board of the World Bank will meet in Washington on June 10 to approve financing of $577 million for Dasu hydropower project, the bank’s top official in Islamabad said on Saturday.

World Bank Country Director Rachid Benmessaoud, in a meeting here with Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, said he hoped the assistance for Dasu project would be approved as “things are moving positively for Pakistan” at the international lender.

Mr Dar informed the bank’s official that the government has embarked upon a plan to meet the energy requirements, and emphasised that World Bank’s assistance in energy and development projects, particularly in Dasu Dam and CASA-1000, will help Pakistan progress.

According to official sources, the proposed Dasu hydropower project, a run-of-river project with total generation capacity at 4,320MW, would be completed in two stages due to capital constraints faced by the government and the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda). Each stage is further divided into two phases of 1080MW.

The project is estimated to cost around $4.25 billion, and the upcoming World Bank assistance is for the first stage, or two phases of 1080MW each.

During the appraisal stage, the World Bank declared that the project is a “high-risk-high reward” operation aimed at providing cheap non-carbon renewable energy. Dasu project will not only help expand electricity supply but also improve access to socio-economic services for local communities in the project area and build Wapda’s capacity to prepare future hydropower projects.

The project is a major investment in Kohistan district, and expected to contribute significantly to the socio-economic development in the local areas.

Apart from the social programmes that will assist the affected population in the wake of construction work to improve their livelihoods, both in terms of income generation and residential conditions, local population are expected to benefit from employment opportunities during the construction phase as well as improvement of local infrastructure, public services and livelihood development support.

The project was initially identified as a potential hydropower project in 1981 and its location was projected 7km upstream of Dasu Bridge.

The project’s feasibility study was carried out in 2009 on the assumption that it would be implemented after Diamer-Basha dam is complete.

Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2014