ISLAMABAD - The government will allocate Rs116 billion for the water and power sector in the upcoming Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP), it was learnt reliably here Thursday.

The total allocation for water sector will be Rs31 billion while for power sector Rs84.76 billion will be earmarked, an official source told The Nation. The source said that in power sector there is no allocation for the projects in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

The source also said that Rs27.5 billion will be allocated for atomic energy. “Out of the allocations for atomic energy, Rs22 billion will be for Chasma 3 and 4,” the source said. The Chashma 3 will be operational in July this year, source said.

The total allocation for the power sector will be Rs372 billion but only Rs84.76 will be financed from the federal PSDP while Rs 286.24 billion will be arranged through self finance and Foreign Exchange Component (FEC).

In power sector, out of Rs84.76 billion allocations funded from the federal PSDP, Rs30 billion will go to two RLNG based power plants of Punjab while Rs14 billion will be allocated for Diamir Bhasha Dam, the source said and added that Rs760 million will go for the four power related projects of Quetta Electric Supply Company projects in Balochistan.

In 2015, a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCE) had decided to install three RLNG power plants of a total capacity of 3600 MW in Punjab, namely in Balloki (Kasur), Haveli Bahadur Shah (Jhang) and Bhikki (Sheikhupura). Two of the power plants, one in Balloki and the other in Haveli Badadur Shah, will be funded from the federal PSDP while the Bhikki Power plants will be executed by the Punjab government. In the federal public sector development programme 2015-16, also, the government allocated Rs22.5b each for the two LNG power plants at Balloki and Haveli Bahadur Shah. For Diamir Bhasha Dam the demand made by WAPDA was much higher than the allocated amount, the source disclosed. Similarly there will be no increase in the PSDP for the water sector and it will stay around Rs31 billion, the source said. It is pertinent to mention here that in the PSDP 2015-16 the water and power ministry's water development projects had seen their allocations reduced from Rs46 billion to Rs31.2 billion.