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| April 26, 2007 | Thursday | Rabi-us-Sani 08, 1428 |
Kalabagh dam only after consensus: NA told
ISLAMABAD, April 25: The National Assembly was on Wednesday informed that the Kalabagh dam would not be built without consensus.
Water and Power Minister Liaquat Ali Jatoi was responding to an objection raised by a member of the house during the question-hour to the inclusion of the dam in the list of 15 hydropower projects being taken up by Wapda.
He said the government had taken a number of steps to instal thermal, hydro and coal-powered generation schemes in public and private sectors to overcome the shortage of electricity in the country.
He informed the house that the work on 24 projects in the private sector and 10 power projects in the public sector would start this year. The projects would become operational by the end of 2010 and would generate over 6,000mw electricity, he added.
The minister said the construction of Diamer-Bhasha dam was yet to start, adding that a preliminary survey work was under way. He said besides drilling of 4,394 metres, six trenches had been completed, while the construction work on Thakot Bridge had commenced. He said the dam was scheduled to be completed by 2016.
Mr Jatoi said that agreements for 10 projects with the private sector had been finalised and hoped that these would start generating 1,300mw electricity next year. He said to ensure smooth supply of power Wapda had decided to install 225 new grid stations in the country, besides improving and upgrading the supply system. He said that an agreement had been reached with the Kuwait Fund for the construction of Golen Gol hydro project and work on the project was expected to commence early next year.
The minister informed the house that Wapda was taking up 15 hydro power projects in various parts of the country which would generate 21,800mw electricity. He said the industrial sector had been allowed to set up their own power projects and they would also be allowed to sell surplus electricity to general consumers. He said no proposal was under consideration to supply electricity to the industries at the subsidised rate.
Mr Jatoi informed the house that Wapda had been successful in bringing down line losses from 22.4 to 20.1 per cent over the last seven months which had resulted in saving of Rs3.5 billion.
In reply to a question, the minister said the federal government had provided Rs7.4 billion to the NWFP to complete 18 water sector projects.
He said the government was taking all possible steps to help the KESC overcome shortfall of electricity in Karachi, adding that Wapda was supplying about 740mw electricity to the KESC daily to meet shortfall.
The KESC has decided to launch an 830mw combined cycle project at a cost of Rs30 billion. A simple cycle plant is expected to be commissioned shortly while the combined cycle plant will be completed by June 2008.
The minister said the rehabilitation of transmission and distribution network and enhancement of the generation capacity were top priority of the present management to provide a better summer to the people of Karachi in the years to come.
About the countrywide beak-down of power on September 24, 2006, he said the reason was a severe system disturbance which caused a surge in power flow on two 500kv Gatti-Barotha transmission lines, while the third 500kv line was under maintenance. The surge in power flow had caused the tripping of the 500KV transmission lines, resulting in a cascaded tripping of the entire system.
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