LAHORE:
Planning Minister Ahsan IQBAL said on Saturday that the Government accelerated the completion of all projects related to hydroelate, including Diamer-Bhasha and Mohmand dams, to prevent India from obtaining any strategic advantage.
“We are prioritizing them so that the Pakistani water is safe,” Iqbal said while talking with a delegation of engineers led by the Secretary General Institution of Pakistan Engineers (IEP) Engineer Zameer.
He said that the work in hydroelectric projects was being prioritized in response to the aggression of India’s water.
India plans to drastically increase the water that extracts from an important river that feeds the Pakistani downstream farms, as part of what it claims to be a reprisal action for a deadly attack last month against tourists in the Pahaalgama de Iiojk that New Delhi blames Islamabad, according to four people familiar with the matter, Reuters reported.
While arguing the plans for the Green Initiative, the Planning Minister declared that engineers were receiving training in China.
“The prime minister has sent more than a thousand agricultural engineers to China for training, which will complete their training this year and will achieve an agricultural green revolution 2.0,” he said. “Our goal is to develop our own seeds and modernize our dairy and cattle sectors.”
The planning minister observed that within the budget, funds for an internship for engineers have been assigned. “Thousands of young engineers throughout the country will be able to receive training at work so that they receive better job opportunities in the market.”
However, he declared that Pakistan would only have a Billion RS1 development budget to do all this.
“Our ministers required RS3 Billion to complete our ongoing projects. But, due to this deficit, we are putting a limit on low priority projects and we will try to complete our high priority projects as quickly as possible.
Iqbal also declared that Pakistan will increase his defense budget for the next fiscal year 2025-26 keeping the recent climbing with India and New Delhi suspending a key treaty to share the river water with Islamabad.
Previously, the Government planned to present the federal budget on June 2, but on Friday, the advisor of the Minister of Finance, Khurram Shahzad, said the budget would occur on June 10.
The planning minister clarified that the budget had not been delayed due to any IMF pressure.
