WAPDA awards Rs133b hydromechanical contract for Diamer-Bhasha dam

WAPDA has awarded a Rs133 billion contract for hydromechanical works on the Diamer-Bhasha Dam to a Chinese company, the authority's spokesperson said, placing a large package of the Indus river project with a single foreign contractor.

The Express Tribune reported the value of the award as Rs133 billion. UrduPoint, quoting the WAPDA spokesperson, reported that the hydromechanical contract for the Diamer-Bhasha Dam Project had been awarded to a Chinese company. The two accounts did not conflict on the value. Neither gave the name of the firm, the duration of the contract or a date for work to begin on site.

Hydromechanical works are the parts of a dam that control water: the gates, valves, conduits and the equipment that holds water in the reservoir, releases it through the spillways and routes it to the powerhouses. They are installed alongside and after the main civil works.

The dam is being built on the Indus in Diamer district of Gilgit-Baltistan, the territory where the project has been followed most closely and where a procurement decision of this size is read as a signal of how fast construction will move.

Several questions were left open. The reports did not say whether the contract covers design and installation as well as supply, how many companies bid, or how the Rs133 billion is to be financed and paid out over the life of the contract. The full text of the spokesperson's statement was not available, and no breakdown of the award (how much for equipment, how much for erection) was published.

The Rs133 billion figure appeared in the Express Tribune's report; the UrduPoint report, which carried the spokesperson's statement, did not mention a value in its headline. Both outlets described the same scheme, the Express Tribune calling it the Bhasha dam and UrduPoint the Diamer-Bhasha Dam Project.

Skardu Times has not independently confirmed the identity of the contractor, the terms of the award or the timetable for the works. No statement from the Gilgit-Baltistan government on the contract was available.

Hydromechanical equipment is usually ordered while civil work is still under way, because the gates and conduits have to be embedded in the structure as it rises. A signed contract is therefore one of the conditions for the dam's spillway and powerhouse sections to move ahead, though the reports did not say where on the site the equipment will be installed or when delivery is due.