ISLAMABAD - The Supreme Court yesterday dismissed a Chinese company’s plea to allow it to participate in bidding process of the construction of Dasu Dam.
A three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, heard the appeal of Power Construction Corporation of China against the Lahore High Court judgment.
The LHC had turned down the Chinese company’s pray to direct the World Bank to include it in the construction of Dasu Dam.
Additional Attorney General Rana Waqar told the court that the World Bank had the authority to approve the name of any company for bidding of Dasu Dam. He said the World Bank had asked the federal government to reject the Chinese company’s plea to include it in the bidding process.
Salman Butt, appearing on behalf of the Chinese company, urged the court to issue a notice to the World Bank. Justice Azmat said since the World Bank was not a party to this case, they could not issue any notice to it.
Wapda in 2014 had announced to undertake a project at Dasu Town on the River Indus. The said project is partly funded by International Development Association (IDA), an organisation forming part of the World Bank Group. The IDA has approved the financing of Stage-1 of the project with a credit of 588.4 million dollars.
Shehzada Mazhar advocate, representing Wapda, contended the Chinese company people were not citizens of Pakistan, so they could not have equal rights under Article 25 of the Constitution.
The project includes the construction of a 5,400MW hydropower plant on the Indus River near Dasu town in Kohistan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The project is located approximately 74km downstream of Diamer-Bhasha Dam, 240km upstream of Tarbela Dam and 345km from Islamabad.
The run-of-river hydropower project is being developed in two stages. Stage 1 includes installation of six hydropower units which will produce 360MW each, while in Stage 2 nine additional 360MW units will be installed.
