KARACHI: The Public Accounts Committee of the Sindh Assembly on Tuesday demanded that the federal government immediately release the blocked funds of over Rs62 billion for the Right Bank Outfall Drain-II (RBOD) project.

PAC Chairman Nisar Ahmed Khuhro expressed grave concern over the non-release of funds from the federal government for the 273-kilometer RBOD-II project despite spend-ing of around Rs40 billion on the scheme, and demanded that the federal government immediately release the funds so that the project could be completed.

He said that work on the RBOD project had been stalled for 10 years, and added that if the RBOD project had been completed, that water would have been released into the sea instead of poisoning the Manchhar Lake.

The PAC meeting was attended among others by PAC Member Taha Ahmed, Irrigation Secretary Zarif Khero and senior officials of theirrigation department.

The meeting participants were informed that the federal government had stopped funding for the irrigation and drainage system rehabilitation schemes, including the lining of canals and distributaries, in Sindh since 2019.

It was stated that the records taken by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for investigation into the RBOD-II projects had been handed over to the irrigation department and the deputy commissioners concerned.

During a previous hearing,the PAC had formed a committee comprising officers of NAB, irrigation department and Board of Revenue to retrieve the seized record of RBOD-II project from the bureau.

The irrigation secretary said that the department was scrutinising the retrieved records, so further time should be given for progress.

The PAC issued instructions to conduct an investigation against the executive engineer of the irrigation department in Dadu for not depositing Rs84 million collected from contractors as performance security fora Rs723 million scheme.

The work on the 273km long RBOD-II, started in 2001 by Wapda with an initial cost of Rs14 billion, had been halted since 2021 when the federal government suspended the funding.

The project was revised twice and its cost reached Rs61.985 billion in 2016.

Later, Wapda handed over the responsibility of starting work on this project to the Sindh irrigation department with the federal share of Rs54.98 billion and Rs7bn provincial government`s share.

The provincial government has released Rs4 billion on this project and the federal government released only Rs5 billion in 2019, but the federation has not released any money on RBOD since 2021, while 39 billion rupees has so far been spent on the project.

Canals lining In the meeting, an objection was raised that Rs1.16 billion was released to contractors for various schemes from the federal funding for the lining of canals in the province, but the contractors had left the work incomplete and no actionwas taken against the defaulting contractors.

The irrigation secretary said that the federal government had released Rs1.16 billion for lining of canals in Sindh in 20182019. Later, he added, the federal government refused to provide further funding due to which the canal lining scheme could not be completed and the contractors were not defaulters as the work was done on the basis of amount released to them.

The PAC chairman demanded that the federal government should provide funds for lining of canals in the province so that seepage could be stopped.

The meeting reviewed the audit reports of the irrigation department for theyear2019and2020.