Spring Onion
PDF VETERAN
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2006
- Messages
- 41,403
- Reaction score
- 19
- Country
- Location
Chinese contractors bag $1.5 bn river project deal in (Azad Kashmir)
25 Feb 2008, 2100 hrs IST,Saibal Dasgupta,TNN
Print Save EMail Write to Editor
BEIJING: Two Chinese contractors have bagged the complete set of contracts for a massive $1.5 billion river diversion and hydro-electricity project in (Azad Kashmir) . The project being built on Neelam river, which flows from India, will employ 1,100 Chinese engineers and workers besides a larger number of Pakistanis.
The project involves a 42-km underground tunnel that will divert the waters of Neelam river in (Azad Kashmir) to Jhelum, which flows through the plains of Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Sind. Neelam flows from India into Pakistan across the Line of Control. India has built the Krishna Gaga Hydro-electricity project on this side of the border.
"The project is in the construction mobalisation stage. The contractor is involved in landscaping and making arrangements for its employees to work there. About 20 employees are already there. This is going to be a technically superior project," Zersis Rustom Birdie, general manager of Adamjee Insurance Company, the biggest privately run insurance company in Pakistan, told TNN in an interview here on Sunday.
The main contract for civil works has gone to Gezhouba Construction Group of China, which built the massive Three Gorges Project in China. CMCE, a Beijing based contractor, has been awarded mechanical and electrical works of the project. The construction phase is 93 months. But the contractors would be expected to supervise the project for another 12 months.
India has already objected to the project on the ground that it did not meet some of the conditions stipulated in a river sharing agreement between the two countries. For one thing, Pakistan has already exceeded the time-limit specified in the agreement, sources said.
But the Pakistani move to award the contract to Chinese companies is believed to be a cause for concern to New Delhi, which plans to erect a "security exclusion zone" for Chinese power equipment manufacturers so that they do not invest in bordering states of Arunachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.
The Neelam-Jhelum project in *** is not too far from LOC. In fact, much of the *** is made up of the Neelam valley, which is a 144 km long bow-shaped forested region.
Neelam enters Pakistan in the Gurais sector of the Line of Control, and then runs west till it meets the Jhelum north of Muzzafarabad.
An interesting aspect of the project is that international reinsurance companies like Swiss Re and Munich Re are shying away from the opportunity to sell their risk covers. Reinsurers are worried about war risk, terrorism risk and the possibility of earthquake damaging the underground tunnels in the project. These reinsurers have quoted extremely high premium rates of 1.4 per cent to 1.5 per cent to cover the project, Birdie said. He is now in China trying to tie up reinsurance deals for the project with Chinese reinsurance companies.
"We expect to get lower quotes of 0.3 per cent to 0.5 per cent from the Chinese reinsurers. This is much, much different from the 1.4 per cent and more quoted by Swiss Re and other big reinsurers," Birdie said.
The Pakistani government is expected to seek financial support of the Asian Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation for the project.
Chinese contractors bag $1.5 bn river project deal in Azad Kashmir-China-World-The Times of India
25 Feb 2008, 2100 hrs IST,Saibal Dasgupta,TNN
Print Save EMail Write to Editor
BEIJING: Two Chinese contractors have bagged the complete set of contracts for a massive $1.5 billion river diversion and hydro-electricity project in (Azad Kashmir) . The project being built on Neelam river, which flows from India, will employ 1,100 Chinese engineers and workers besides a larger number of Pakistanis.
The project involves a 42-km underground tunnel that will divert the waters of Neelam river in (Azad Kashmir) to Jhelum, which flows through the plains of Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Sind. Neelam flows from India into Pakistan across the Line of Control. India has built the Krishna Gaga Hydro-electricity project on this side of the border.
"The project is in the construction mobalisation stage. The contractor is involved in landscaping and making arrangements for its employees to work there. About 20 employees are already there. This is going to be a technically superior project," Zersis Rustom Birdie, general manager of Adamjee Insurance Company, the biggest privately run insurance company in Pakistan, told TNN in an interview here on Sunday.
The main contract for civil works has gone to Gezhouba Construction Group of China, which built the massive Three Gorges Project in China. CMCE, a Beijing based contractor, has been awarded mechanical and electrical works of the project. The construction phase is 93 months. But the contractors would be expected to supervise the project for another 12 months.
India has already objected to the project on the ground that it did not meet some of the conditions stipulated in a river sharing agreement between the two countries. For one thing, Pakistan has already exceeded the time-limit specified in the agreement, sources said.
But the Pakistani move to award the contract to Chinese companies is believed to be a cause for concern to New Delhi, which plans to erect a "security exclusion zone" for Chinese power equipment manufacturers so that they do not invest in bordering states of Arunachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.
The Neelam-Jhelum project in *** is not too far from LOC. In fact, much of the *** is made up of the Neelam valley, which is a 144 km long bow-shaped forested region.
Neelam enters Pakistan in the Gurais sector of the Line of Control, and then runs west till it meets the Jhelum north of Muzzafarabad.
An interesting aspect of the project is that international reinsurance companies like Swiss Re and Munich Re are shying away from the opportunity to sell their risk covers. Reinsurers are worried about war risk, terrorism risk and the possibility of earthquake damaging the underground tunnels in the project. These reinsurers have quoted extremely high premium rates of 1.4 per cent to 1.5 per cent to cover the project, Birdie said. He is now in China trying to tie up reinsurance deals for the project with Chinese reinsurance companies.
"We expect to get lower quotes of 0.3 per cent to 0.5 per cent from the Chinese reinsurers. This is much, much different from the 1.4 per cent and more quoted by Swiss Re and other big reinsurers," Birdie said.
The Pakistani government is expected to seek financial support of the Asian Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation for the project.
Chinese contractors bag $1.5 bn river project deal in Azad Kashmir-China-World-The Times of India
