Mohmand Dam groundbreaking ceremony on May 2. PM to be Chief Guest

Ground breaking ceremony of Mohmand Dam is taking place on May 2, 2019, at the site. Prime Minister Imran Khan will be the Chief Guest. Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) had already awarded contract of this project to a consortium led by Descon Engineering of sitting commerce minister Abdul Razak Dawood. The project had been awarded at a cost of 298 billion rupees.

Mohmand dam would have a gross storage capacity to store 1.9 million acre feet (MAF) water with power generation potential of 800-MW and it will irrigate around 17,000 acres of land.

 

Devaluation shoots up Bhasha Dam cost by Rs 322 billion

B J. Choudhry/ISAMABAD: The cost of Diamir Bhasha Dam and Hydropower Project has surged by 322 billion rupees merely because of the devaluation of rupee by the incumbent government of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf.

The estimated cost of this dam is $14 billion. It amounted to 1624 billion rupees when the PTI came into power. However, after devaluation the cost of this mega dam and hydropower project has shot up to 1946 billion rupees. That too in case the dollar-rupee exchange rate remains stable, at existing inter-bank rate of 139 rupees _ which seems impossible as we can see more devaluation in coming months and years. Diamir Bhasha Dam will be completed in seven years, from the date work on this mega project will be initiated. And it is understood that keeping in view the historical trend of devaluation, in next seven years, we will see more devaluation of rupees that will further magnify the cost of the project.

Importantly, the government and the Supreme Court’s Chief Justice Fund for Mohmand and Bhasha Dams have received around 10 billion rupees worth donation _ whereas, the government needed around 2000 billion rupees just for Bhasha Dam.

However, in the case of Mohmand Dam, its cost is expected to remain the same – Rs 298 billion as the contract of the project had already been award to a consortium led by Descon Engineering company of sitting commerce minister Abdul Razzak Dawood. This is much smaller project in comparison with Bhasha Dam.

Mohmand dam would have a gross storage capacity to store 1.9 million acre feet (MAF) water with power generation potential of 800MW and it will irrigate around 17,000 acres of land.

Bhasha Dam salient features

Bhasha Dam is a gravity dam, in the preliminary stages of construction, on the River Indus in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. Upon completion, Diamer-Bhasha Dam would be the highest RCC dam in the world. The dam site is situated near a place called “Bhasha” in Gilgit-Baltistan’s Diamer District, hence the name. Diamer-Bhasha Dam would (i) produce 4,500 megawatts of electricity through environmentally clean hydropower generation; (ii) store an extra 8,500,000 acre feet (10.5 km) of water for Pakistan that would be used for irrigation and drinking; (iii) extend the life of Tarbela Dam located downstream by 35 years; and (iv) control flood damage by the River Indus downstream during high floods.

It will have a height of 272 meters spillway with fourteen gates each 11.5 m x 16.24 m. The gross capacity of the reservoir will be 8,100,000 acre feet (10.0 km), with a live storage of 6,400,000 acre feet (7.9 km). Two underground power houses are being proposed, one on each side of the main dam having six turbines on each side with total installed capacity 4500 MW.

For feedback please send email to the writer at: jchoudhry63@gmail.com (Chief Editor Weekly Corporate Ambassador, Karachi/Islamabad).

NOTE: For more info, please see this earlier story.

https://weeklycorporateambassador.wordpress.com/2015/08/05/diamir-bhasha-dam-16-years-gone-land-still-not-purchased

 

Serving Needy people is my passion: Dr Afrozia

SUCCESS STORY OF A COURAGEOUS WOMAN-LEADER

Dr Afrozia Tabassum, Chairperson of Tabbo Welfare Society in Karachi (third from right) is being welcomed at 15th Corporate Ambassador Awards, organized recently in Karachi. Quratul Ain Kalhoro, Syed Turab Shah, Dr Afrozia, Javed Mahmood, Rozina Jalal, Ms Naveen and Syed Amin-Ullah Hussain, CEO AJ Sports are seen in this group photo. She was honoured with Health Care & Social Welfare Icon Award.

J. Choudhry/KARACHI: Serving the needy people in the society of the mission of my life. Chairperson and Founder of Tabbo Welfare Association in Karachi Dr Afrozia Tabbassum said this while talking to Corporate Ambassador.

Tabbo Welfare Society is serving the poor and deserving people since 2006. In other words, the social welfare organization of Dr Afrozia has completed 12 years of serving thousands of the people in Karachi.

Tabbo Welfare Society is running a school for children up to class-8 while a stitching center is also working to give training to the deserving women to learn the skill of stitching to earn their livelihood in respectable manner. In addition to this, Dr Afrozia is running a hospital in New Nazimabad area, near Sakhi Hassan and Manghopir area in Karachi. In this hospital, poor patients are getting free treatment _ medical checkup and medicines, with payment of just Rs 50 registration fee.

“We are giving free medicines, injection to the poor patients who are not in a position to buy medicines,” Dr Afrozia said. She said that up to 50 patients are visiting the hospital every day. Chairperson of Tabbo Welfare Society further stated that her hospital is offering normal delivery operations at just minimum cost _ Rs 2000 to 3000 per patient. However, these charges are also exempted in case the patient is not in a position to pay it. She said that the private hospitals are charging thousands of rupees for each normal delivery, but the motto of her hospital is to service the needy patients with commitment, dedication and without the greed of minting money.

Dr Afrozia further stated that the Tabbo Welfare Society’s school is charging just 200 to 300 rupees per month fee from the student that was like nothing when compared with the private schools that are extorting thousands of rupees as fee from each and every student.

She further said that her society was also providing food items free of cost to the poor families. Dr Afrozia also said that she often arranged “Dastar Khwaan” as well to serve free meals to the needy people in the area.

She also said that Tabbo Welfare Society has organized several walks and rallies to create awareness against drugs addiction in the society and its spoiling impacts of families of the addicted persons.

Chairperson of Tabbo Society said that she wanted to expand the scope of serving the maximum number of the people for which she is looking for donations from rich persons and big donors, including the organizations.

Meanwhile, the mission of the Tabbo Welfare Society also included focus on alleviating poverty and social inclusion of the deserving people. “We do this through well-planned and comprehensive programs in health, education, livelihoods and disaster preparedness and response,” she said. We also focus on generating and sharing knowledge with diverse stakeholders to influence sustainable impact at scale. Our overall goal is the empowerment of People from poor and marginalized communities, leading to improvement in their lives and livelihoods.

Tabbo Welfare Society believes in helping individuals to lead their life  with dignity. To achieve this, our livelihood programmes focus on generating sustainable livelihoods. This is done through capacity building, fostering community links and promoting small businesses.

Dr Afrozia Tabassum further explained that her Society also focuses on improving the conditions by which persons, especially those in the marginalized communities can access quality education. Education is an important tool that enables Persons to participate in decisions that affect their lives and in improving their social status, she added.

Tabbo Welfare Society works in close collaboration with State Government and other partner organizations to secure accessible and quality maternal and healthcare services among marginalized communities.

Meanwhile, a roof over their heads is a critical need of the elders who are destitute, sick and abandoned by family and those uprooted by disasters. Tabbo Welfare Society has established model homes for the senior citizens and aged in many places, she said.

Regarding addiction of drugs, she said that the drugs addicted not only spoil their own lives, but they also put others around them at risk as well. Tabbo Welfare Society anti-drug education initiative helps individuals to understand the hazards of addiction and it explains the exact effects of drugs on a person’s mind and body.

Tabbo Welfare Society was founded with a focus on domestic violence and human trafficking. The organization has since expanded its counseling, shelter, campaign and research activities to the areas of child and woman abuse and protection

Alleviation Poverty

Tabbo Welfare Trust mostly focus in poverty to alleviate poverty through education and awareness programs.

“We are also giving financial support to families for marriage of their daughters,” she added.

Tabbo Welfare Society gives awareness of education to poor families and help them to provide quality education for them children. Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world and the most effective way to break out of the cycle of poverty.  children are not only deprived of their right to receive an education but they lose their childhood to earn bread for a living.

Here are the important priorities of Tabbo Welfare Society in Karachi:

• To educate the masses and spread literacy, particularly among women, in order to bring about a sustainable change in the society.

• To focus toward future self-employment with the hope of breaking the cycle of ongoing dependency, while giving immediate assistance to families in the current crisis.
• Tabbo Welfare Society makes an effort to support families in these difficult situations by providing basic items necessary for newlywed girls, including dresses, shoes, utensils, bedding, fans, sewing machines, and more, along with some financial assistance to offset marriage expenses.
• Tabbo Welfare Society drug education helps individuals fully understand the mechanics of addiction and explains the exact effects of drugs on a person’s mind and body.
• Sick and abandoned by family and those who uprooted by disasters for Those Persons Tabbo Welfare Society has established model homes in many places.

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$4 Billion decline reported in Current Account Deficit

Corporate Ambassador/KARACHI: State Bank of Pakistan has reported $4 billion decline in the current account deficit in nine months of the ongoing financial year. From July-March 2018-19, Pakistan has sustained $9.58 billion dollars current account deficit, whereas, in the corresponding period of last financial year this deficit was around $13.58 billion.

Slowdown in the economic development, government’s curbs on different imports has finally led to improvement in the current account deficit of the country in first nine months of 2018-19. State Bank of Pakistan’s update about balance of payment position is also attached here to share more information with the readers.

 

Foreign investment plunges to record low in 9 months in Pakistan

Corporate Ambassador/KARACHI: The inflow of foreign investment in Pakistan has dropped to the record low level in first nine months of financial year 2018-19. From July 2018- to March 2019, Pakistan has received only 873 million dollars total foreign investment, compared to 4.95 billion dollars in the corresponding period in 2017-18. In percentage, inflow of foreign investment reflects a massive 82.4 decrease in nine months of the ongoing financial year. In monetary terms, the investment has declined by 4.8 billion dollars during July-March period of 2018-19. State Bank of Pakistan has mentioned this in its latest update of foreign investment that was circulated on Wednesday (April 18, 2019).

This indicates that the country is still waiting for much-awaited foreign investment from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, China and other countries, with whom MoUs have already been signed for massive foreign investment. It is expected that in next financial year, 2019-20, the MoUs signed with different countries would lead to increase in inflow of foreign investment in Pakistan. Thus, the financial year 2018-19, will be considered the worst year as far as the inflow of foreign investment is concerned.

The riddle of a defeat: Why IRGC has been proscribed?

Corporate Ambassador/ISLAMABAD: Iranian Ambassador in Islamabad has said that on February 8, 2019, Donald Trump president of the United States, announced in another irresponsible and preposterous move, the designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) as a “foreign terrorist organization.” This action which is considered for most of the international community as a senseless, provocative and inconceivable one, could open a Pandora’s box and result in a more complicated situation in Middle East. People and government of Iran who have a long history of resistance and defiance towards bully approaches of US, reacted to this decision outrageously.

Iranian Ambassador said that for some people there is an ambiguity that why US state department decided to do so while Pentagon declined to comment on this risky decision and many other decision maker departments also were still indecisive about that!  To decipherer the reasons and consequences of such unprecedented and internationally illegal decision, some aspects of this decision are mentioned here:

 

1. Interventionism: since revolution in 1979 in Iran, many equations changed in the region. The revolution inspired movements in the region conformed neither to US policies nor to the authoritarian regimes in the region. So the agenda for Regime Change in Iran became a perpetual present option on the table of hawkish decision makers in the US. During the 4 previous decades, US relentlessly Endeavored to subjugate the independent and non reliant government of Iran; In this context, many malicious plans like flaring up the tensions between Persian Gulf countries with Iran, implicitly forcing other countries to limit their economic transactions with Iran, provoking an illusion of Iranophobia brought forward against Iran that none of them reached to their destined purposes. This failure, that went more complicated with the American defeated policies in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and etc, gradually damaged the reputation of a self proclaimed Super Power in the world.  To cover these scandalous debacles up, Trump and some of his warmonger advisors defined IRGC as the main reason of US policy failures in the region. A claim that is neither right nor rational. Naming and shaming of IRGC that is a part of Iranian national defense force, is a blatant infringement of Iran’s national sovereignty.

 

2. Unilateralism: during the recent years, US has devoted to many efforts to make an international coalition against Iran. Different motions for terrorist calling of IRGC and the unit of Quds Force had also been introduced by the US and some of its seduced allies in UNSC and UNHRC that found no way to succeed. The noncompliance of other countries with such politically motivated motions was because of a wisdom oriented mindset; they know the fact that IRGC was a part of a State that internationally cosponsoring its proscription was not only ridiculous and unprecedented but could found a new realm of Double Standards in United Nations, that one day could be applied for theirs as well. In this context, the repeated defeat of US in multilateral arena, forced this country to resort to another act of unilateralism. A decision that didn’t have enough supporters even at home!

 

3. Legality: IRGC is a part of Iran’s defense structure. Any country in the world is entitled to define and strengthen its defensive body according to its benefits and presumed threats.  The US decision in terrorist calling of IRGC, which is intended to weaken the defensive and military prowess of Iran, is a clear violation of article 51 of UN charter; which clarifies the right of self-defense as an inherent right for each country.

 

4. Legitimacy: established in 1979, IRGC took the responsibility of Guarding the Islamic Revolution and its achievements. As the Revolution was a people-oriented one, most of the Iranians were eager to be a part of this Guardian Corp. In this regard, the participation of people in IRGC was defined in the context of Basij (Niruyeh Moghavemat Basij) which was totally voluntary and un  Today about 35 million Iranians privilege the membership of Basij that means about half of the total population in Iran. Proscription of IRGC and its sections by US is a clear insult to the civilians of a country.

 

5. Right to development: according to the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development (Adopted by General Assembly resolution 41/128 of 4 December 1986), International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, UNSDGs and many other international documents, development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development. After the invasion of Iraq to Iran in 1980 and its 8 years endured war, the noose around Iran’s economy tightened more than ever. In this context, IRGC that had a deep roots in people started to develop the local industries and flourish native talents. In this context, Khatam-al Anbiya Construction Headquarter was established to help the country to rebuild the war – resulted destructions. Hundreds of hospitals, schools, bridges, dams, house for villegers and etc were constructed by this Headquarter while government and profitable corporations because of huge difficulties couldn’t do them.  Eradication of structural poverty was another function of this Headquarter. Due to the membership of graduated and talented people in this part, many innovations and progress achieved through this initiative. After the unfair and unjust economic sanctions on Islamic Republic of Iran, that weakened the competitiveness of Iranian companies to their foreign counterparts, the role and importance of Khatam-al Anbiya Construction Headquarter for national development came to look more essential.  US decision in terrorist calling IRGC that is added to unfair and discriminatory sanctions is a blatant violation of Iranians right to development.

Waiting for Modi’s 2nd Pulwama-Drama

Corporate Ambassador/ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has forewarned the people about another Pulwama-like drama to be staged by the BJP-led Indian Prime Minister’s government during April 16-20. Pakistan FM has exposed this upcoming conspiracy of Modi’s government that again aims at Indian aggression against Pakistan. The information of the Foreign Minister Mr Qureshi is, no doubt, based on intelligence information and it is serious in the sense that no other than Pakistani Foreign Minister has disclosed it after sensing the nature of this impending threat. In other words, to win general elections in India, taking places in coming few weeks, the BJP government is going to put at stake lives of 1.45 billion people _ 1.25 Indians and 200 million Pakistanis. As both the countries are nuclear power, the destruction of war, in case of a full-scale fight, would be beyond the anticipation of those who are once again adventuring into this misadventure.

In recent aggression, Pakistan had already shot down two Indian warplanes and also captured their pilots _ one, Abhinandan, released within a week after his arrest as a goodwill gesture while the second had gone ‘missing’.

The world’s war history, so far, gives no evidence of war between two nuclear powers. For example, China-India are frequently involving in border skirmishes and same is the scenario at Pakistan-Indian border at Line of Control, where hardly a week passes without Indian shelling on Pakistan side. In retaliation, Pakistani forces are also giving some response, but not the befitting one, that could silence Indian guns at border for ever.

During recent shooting down of two Indian warplanes, Pakistan sent a clear message _ zero tolerance for any misadventure and an appropriate action to teach a bitter lesson to India. However, if India again finds out another Pulwama-Drama, once again India will face more humiliation at all levels. Being a nuclear power, Pakistan is capable of causing an immense damage to India in war.

Let’s see whether or not the Indian government shows any decency and abstains from any misadventure in future.

 

PMRC, 5 Banks to give Rs4.80 billion home loans under PM’s scheme

Prime Minister Imran Khan is chairing an important meeting to review home loans for construction of 5 million new homes ahead of Pakistan Housing Conference in Islamabad.

 

Corporate Ambassador, ISLAMABAD: In a recent ceremony of Pakistan Housing Conference held in Islamabad, the Pakistan Mortgage Refinancing Company (PMRC) has signed Agreements and MOUs involving a huge amount of PKR 4,800 million investment. These agreements were signed in the presence of Prime Minister of Pakistan Mr. Imran Khan and officials of the World Bank Group, with the House Building Finance Company, Askari Commercial Bank, First Woman Bank, Bank Islami and Khushali Microfinance Bank, to offer low income housing finance.

At the conference, the Prime Minister Imran Khan told the audience that providing 5 million houses in 5 years is, indeed, an ambitious target keeping in view the lack of necessary infrastructure and inefficient foreclosure laws due to which banks are reluctant to provide mortgage loans. However, government is fully determined to meet the existing demand of 10 million houses in the country for which it is working closely with State Bank of Pakistan and World Bank to resolve implementation challenges. World Bank Country Director Illango Patchamuthu said that in Pakistan it took around 25 years for an individual to own a house compared with five years in the international market. He further said that World Bank has made available USD 140 million facilities for housing finance through PMRC.

He applauded the performance of PMRC and as the demand of PMRC funding is increasing, he indicated World Bank’s further support to PMRC. “PMRC is a joint initiative of the State Bank of Pakistan, Government of Pakistan and the World Bank Group established with the objectives of increasing affordable housing finance especially for the low and middle income groups; providing mortgage finance through banks, DFIs and housing finance companies and development of capital markets with fixed rate long term Bonds and Sukuks,” said Mudassir H. Khan, Managing Director/CEO of PMRC. He further added that “PMRC is fully committed to support the initiative of providing 5 million low cost housing providing liquidity to banks/ DFIs/FIs through refinancing and had already disbursed PKR 5,200 million to three banks and a housing finance company for extending mortgage loans to the people”.

PMRC started its commercial operations in November 2018 and within a very short period of time has created a unique position in the financial sector. It is 51% owned by private commercial banks whereas 49% by Government/Public sector. PMRC will soon launch its fixed rate bonds to generate further liquidity from capital markets. This will not only increase lending to financial institutions for further extending mortgage loans but also provide an alternate asset class for investors to reap attractive risk adjusted returns besides providing diversification benefits to their investment portfolios.

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