Private sector to add 2,380MW to national grid

[Naveed Yaseen]

ISLAMABAD: A total of 2,380MW will be added into the system by the next year, while another 1,100MW will be injected into the national grid the following year ie year 2010 through the private sector.

This was conveyed in the 77th meeting of the Board of Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB) held on Saturday with Minister for Water & Power, Raja Parvez Ashraf in the chair.

The minister said that as proper power planning had not been done in the past, the nation today, is subjected to acute power shortages resulting in the menace of load-shedding, which is not only a nightmare to the common man, but is also creating a huge loss to the economy of the country.

He said that the present government realises the importance of the power sector, and that is why, immediately after accession to power, our government took immediate measures to induct electricity into the system in the coming years.

The minister lauded the efforts of the PPIB team for attracting the investor community to establish power plants in the country, with specific reference to materialising the fast track initiative of the government, where an interest of around 3,000MW was received during the competitive bidding of 1,500MW fast track projects.

A transparent process was followed for these, bids were opened in public in front of the media, and accordingly eight projects with a cumulative capacity of 1,366MW will commission in 2009-2010.

We wow to eliminate load shedding in the country by next year, he continued.

Ashraf said that we believe in the policy of facilitating the investors, and do not want them to face any hurdles or delays during the processing of their projects. He further added that in order to make electricity affordable, an energy mix is utmost necessary, and therefore for future we are stressing on the use of indigenous resource like hydropower and our local coal at Thar, as well as imported coal.

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